The Role of Leisure in the Reproduction of Race and Ethnicity Among Korean Americans

258 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.Korean Americans developed three different types of racialized ethnic identities: (a) diasporic ethnic identity---developed beyond the confines of a nation state and intermixed with assigned racial identity; (b) ethnic American identity---developed in reference to the American society and combined with assigned racial identity; and (c) situational ethnic and racial identity---ethnic identity developed in reference to the American society and intertwined with the affirmative racial identity. The type of ethnic/racial identity interviewees developed was dependent on their generational track, the length of exposure to the American society, and the English language proficiency. The higher the generational track, the longer the length of exposure to the American society, and the higher the English proficiency, the more Korean American interviewees appeared to embrace the situational ethnic and racial identity. The participants in this study constructed their ethic identities through the recognition of and practices of their unique ethnic culture, and through the experience of racial discrimination. In constructing the affirmative racial identity, the awareness of unequal racialized system, the experience of racial discrimination, and the feelings of comfort with the similar racial group played important roles. Leisure engagements played significant roles in the formation of racial and ethnic identity, in that leisure sites were the places where people freely displayed their unique culture and where they experienced discrimination.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD