Gender Roles Within The KA Immigrant Family

Although China’s influence over Korea has waned severely since the dynastic years we find the Confucian system of virtues and behaviors, China’s chief export from that time, still very much alive. Korea highly values the extended family, education, personal discipline and public order. In South Korea Confucian temples continue to be maintained throughout the country. The tenets of Confucianism are seen as antidotes to social ills and therefore education is thought of as a means of building character, not simply of intellectual formation. The values of Confucianism are promulgated throughout Korea in places as diverse as school, the office and the home. Television programs often portray Confucian merits such as filial piety and harmony. However

The documentary entitled “Habitual Sadness” directed by Byun Young-Joo highlights the manner with which comfort women, or Chongsindae, were both accepted by society as a result of the stigma surrounding their societal categorization. The documentary portrays the experiences of a particular group of comfort women at the Sharing House whilst providing the viewer with a vivid first hand account of the puissant recollections of the treatment encountered by the women upon their reentry into Korean society.

Good families have many ingredients that make them function properly. One of these elements is values, or what the family views as important. This helps family members know what is good and bad for them. The article “Celebrating Your Family Culture” states, “Around our household, we constantly say, ‘Well, in our family we believe…and everyone’s family is different.’ I’m sure my son gets tired of hearing this in response to why he can’t have the latest electronic gadget, but I also think hearing this anchors him. Kids want to know where you stand on important issues and what your family values,” (Trudeau). The article tells how even though the family values can annoy a member; it steadies them to know the priorities. Having that clear view can also have other effects on family members. When My Name was Keoko tells how Keoko or Sun-hee saw her uncle and mom value their patriotism. This helped her see that her own patriotism should be strong (Park 11, 32, 33, 93). The family values were very important when the Japanese invaded Korea. They were probably the only Korean thing the people of Korea had. Without them the Koreans would give up and never have their own culture again. Concluding, the values that families have are very

“We may look and act modern in many ways, but we can’t escape what we are... obedient chinese daughters.” This quote sums up the world that May and Pearl live in, that no matter the culture, no matter the time period, and no matter the situation, your gender decides your fate or does it? The theme of gender and how they dictate our roles in society run rampant in Shanghai Girls by Lisa Lee. Lee’s novel covers a great deal about the immigrant experience and the struggles they had to go through to adapt to their new environment but one thing they didn 't need to adapt was the parts they played in their families. The importance of this traditional society,where the men are the breadwinners and the women the caretakers are first shown in how Pearl and Mays family worked. The father was expected to make money and take care of the household, while the mother, May and Pearl were off fooling around. When the situation turns dire, the father does not conform to his role to help his family and takes the easy way out and sells off his daughters. However the father did not account for his daughters refusing the offer he already made to pay back his debts. This caused a thunderstorm of confusion and trouble, which led to the death of respect, Pearl had for her father. For in this critical moment, the father wet himself and could not muster out a word but the mother brilliantly stepped in and defused the situation. “I see hardness in her that I’ve never seen before.”,

Asian immigrants raised their children on the values of filial piety. Filial piety is based on Confucianism ideology which is one showing respect to one’s parent. American-born children are raised with two values which are Confucianism and the American values. The American values allow an individual to make their decisions either in their career, marriage, or lifestyle. Unlike, the American values, Confucianism decisions are decided by the parents, which have created tension in both generations. The immigrant parents stress the importance of a proper education to their children because the parents did not have the opportunity for education. Education was a privilege meaning only the families that had money could send their children to school. The parents began working at a young age to support their family and maintaining the household was more important than education. The immigrant parents are motivated by the “American Dream” instead of a financial benefit, the better the education and the employment, the more opportunities that would be offered. A person without a proper education would not succeed in life compared to the ones that have an education.

Just like in the US there are 3 meals a day. But the most important meal of the day is el almuerzo (lunch) unlike the US.To start off the day they have a huge breakfast, which includes 2 eggs and a smaller steak with beans and a cup of coffee. For

A week ago I found myself reading Patricia Hill Collins, “It’s All In the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation” and it made me reflect on the ways in which both gender and race are socially built out of distorted interpretations of family. Collectively constructed as opposed to an innate understanding. We have grown dependent on dysfunctional projections of family, giving rise to a hierarchy which aims to serve all: “…a male headship that privileges and naturalizes masculinity as a source of authority…mothers comply with fathers, sisters defer to brothers, all with the understanding that boys submit to maternal authority until they become men.” (Collins 159) The commitment towards this flawed assemblage of characterizations, has in a way, normalized the social hierarchy. However, this expectation has become unrealistic. Many females find that they are not adequately prepared to survive in a male dominated country, although there is little rebellion against these imposed values.

8. In what different ways did Japanese and Korean women experience the pressures of Confucian orthodoxy?

Although immigrant women play a big role in America’s society and economy, they have been constantly mistreated and looked down upon throughout history. Not only do they face the burden of the stratifications that their gender entails but they also struggle to adopt the American culture and norms. America was viewed as the land of opportunities and economic prosperity, a perspective that draws in many immigrant women who were willing to leave their families and possessions to come to this foreign country in hopes of a better life. In America, they faced many challenges as they not only had to work long hours but also took care of their families and do housework as well. They struggled to make a standard living out of low wage jobs and assimilating into America’s society. Today, the treatment of immigrant women has improved greatly as they have stood together and fought for their rights. Immigrant women have built communities and held strikes for better pay and treatment. Although America has made great strides in improving treatment of immigrant women, there is still social injustice. Immigrant women have come a long way from the first time they entered America until now, but their stories are often left untold and omitted from American history.

language. Some positive outcomes of cultural brokering on immigrant families are increased self-esteem, better knowledge of English language, and feeling like one matters to their family. Some negative outcomes of cultural brokering on immigrant families are stress and depressive moods, embarrassment of parents, conflicts within the family, and parentification of the child. All of these outcomes of cultural brokering are products of the acculturation theory. Lastly, some strengths of the acculturation theory include the focus on immigrant experience, the fact that it emphasizes the strengths that immigrants bring, and that it provides understanding of immigrant experiences for individuals who might communicate or be in the workplace with immigrant

Written by Margaret K. Pai, the Dreams of Two Yi-min narrates the story of her Korean American family with the main focus on the life journeys of her father and mother, Do In Kwon and Hee Kyung Lee. Much like the majority of the pre-World War II immigrants, the author’s family is marked and characterized by the common perception of the “typical” Asian immigrant status in the early 20th century: low class, lack of English speaking ability, lack of transferable education and skills, and lack of knowledge on the host society’s mainstream networks and institutions (Zhou and Gatewood 120, Zhou 224). Despite living in a foreign land with countless barriers and lack of capital, Kwon lead his wife and children to assimilate culturally,

Eventually I distanced myself from the Korean community, which was difficult since I came from a culture which valued harmony and ties to the community. As a woman with two kids, I am fully aware of my fantasy of being the ‘super mom’, who could work full-time and take care of the kids without breaking a sweat. This ideal notion of motherhood was influenced by my religious, cultural, and gender identities. Specifically, I value kindness, self-sacrifice, hard-work, and responsibility. All things that enabled me to provide be a good mother, sister, daughter, and a wife.

The third part of Immigrant Woman explained in detail about the working experiences of the immigrant woman. The immigrant woman took different depending on the different demographic places they live. The woman who lived closer to the urban regions took jobs in the factories while the woman who lived closer to rural area took jobs in the farms. Many of the woman took the jobs in order to support their families. As an example,“Married women took jobs because their husbands were sick, injured, unemployed, or no good… drinks and spends his own money. Most often, they did do because their husbands’ earnings were inadequate” (Seller 85). The married woman had to work even harder, because they had to take care of their sick husband alongside figuring

Confucianism had strong drawbacks on Choson Dynasty as it hindered reforms, created internal divisions among governors, and aggravated gender equality. The philosophical teaching can be seen as a barrier towards further development and the cause of disunion in society. This paper will delve into the these ideas by explaining the deep belief of conservatism that made Korea underdeveloped in the wake of Japan’s militarism and the claim that Confucianism led people to judge each other based on identities such as gender rather than their conducts. The paper will look into the connection between the values formed by Confucianism and the features of Choson society.

In Korean Researchers’ perspectives, they could not find more data on the marriage arrangement in between couples because most of the research of East Asia trends started in the 1970s through today. However, my grandmother told me that how they faced the hardships in the 1900s because they had to work really hard to survive from Japanese soldiers and Korean war so that she could survive and live for her families during that time period.