Korean American Youth in the U.S.

Leigh Hiura
Section A02
Reading: Korean American Youth and Transnational Flows of Popular Culture across the Pacific 


This reading is about the Korean American youth and how they are affected by their Korean culture. Jung-Sun Park writes about how Korean culture is important to Korean Americans and how it resembles globalization. Also, in one section, he mentions the sonbaes. These people do not have jobs and spend the majority of their time in cultural places in order to kill time. Two of the people he spoke to were unsure of what to do with their lives and did not see a bright future for themselves. I felt this section was the most effective because I really felt for them. While I am not in the same situation as them, I sometimes feel like I do not know what I am going to do in the future and I really hope I do not turn out like them, especially because the job market is not doing very well right now. These people must turn to their friends and stores to comfort them and to entertain them. What I did find interesting though was the fact that many non-Korean people knew about their culture solely based on who their friends were and how they grew up. For example, that boy who knew about H.O.T. because of his roommate. My question for this reading is how are Japanese Americans similar and different to Korean Americans.