Title: Korean American Protestants in America Research Paper:
A Literature review on Korean American Protestants needs to be a logical argument with critical thinking and should show a meaningful picture based on the findings.
How to Write the Introduction
• Emphasize the abundance of literature on the first and second generation Korean American and their churches
• Out of immigrants, find that Korean immigrant are largest Protestant group about 60%??
• Focus on the majority of Korean American immigrant Protestant background and cite statistics like today how many were Christian in Korea versus the U.S.
• Immigrant church help preserve their ethnic traditions
• Traditionally, studies show that the church serves as an institutional vehicle for transmission and retention of ethnicity
• Studies on the earlier white immigrant group (i.e. Italians, Jewish) religious experience show immigrant groups have used religion/ethnic immigrant church to preserve their ethnic traditions
• Studies on the contemporary immigrant group religious experience such as Asianized Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism etc
• Immigrant studies find that active participation in ethnic immigrant church preserve ethnicity
• To what extent has, the first generation Korean-Americans transmitted their religion and culture to the next generation.
• For Korean Americans, Protestant is not an indigenous religion (Western religion)
• Can the second generation Korean-Americans maintain ethnicity through the church?
• Define ethnicity . There are three components: psychological, ethnic network (fellowship), and cultural. Since the Korean-Americans are Protestant, which not an indigenous religion, there is only really two components to study: fellowship and cultural retention)
• There is a high association between religion and ethnicity
• Ethnicity into religion and assimilation
• Objective or Thesis: How this paper will evaluate/analyze the inter-generation transmission of religion and ethnicity through the Protestant religion between the two Korean-American generations through a literature review.
• Emphasize that this is a literature review
• Why is this study important and how does it contribute?
Theory
• Active participation in an ethnic congregation serves as a mechanism to preserve ethnicity (seen with earlier white immigration studies and many post 1965 studies or contemporary immigrant studies)
• Assimilation theory
For the first generation, active participation in the first generation church hinders assimilation For the second generation, active participation in the second generation church promotes assimilation (If it doesn’t work well in this section than delete assimilation theory section and just work it into the body sections)
First generation Korean-American (two sections- incorporate the studies)
Affiliation with Protestant religion and Participation (its contribution to ethnic network)
• Mostly affiliated with the Protestant religion (what percentage)
• Frequent religious participation (how often and what do they do)
• What services, worship services, or programs are available to the first generation
• First generation actively participated and frequently attended church (about 70%)
• Selective migration of Christians and middle-class, this percentage increased later in American when non-Protestant Koreans converted (what percentage)
• Post 1965 reforms in immigration policies led to selective migration of Protestants
• Out of the converted non-Christians, some eventually became “true believers” in the biblical faith (Hurh and Kim 1990)
• Ethnic church attractive to non-Christians as ethnic network because it met with their needs and socially exclusive (Kim and Kim)
Preservation and Maintenance of Korean Cultural traditions
• Maintain their ethnic and cultural tradition through religion through active participation
• Fellowship/worship style (formal attire, piano, organ)
• Church served several key socio-cultural functions: providing fellowship, social services, and cultural retention
• Cell group ministry
• Church involvement became a “way of life”
• To hold a position in church, increased life satisfaction and was “positively correlated with mental health”
• Added a few shamanistic and Confucianism cultural traditions, celebrated holidays, spoke Korean, wore Korean traditional clothes
• Sermons or message contributed to preserving Korean culture
• Identified as Koreans first and Christians second
• Exclusive church hindered assimilation into the mainstream society
Second generation Korean-American (two sections- incorporate the studies)
Affiliation with Protestant religion and Participation
• Not all the research agree that the second generation adults attend church
• What proportion retained/inherited the first generation’s Protestant religion
• See high participation out of the second generation who retained the first generations’ religion
(They have many services available to them and go to church often.
Similar to the first generation they don’t just go to church on Sundays)
• Make sense they inherit Protestant religion since they grew up in a community where over 70% were Protestant
• Second generation are acculturated to the mainstream society, yet they still choose to attend an ethnic church. Why?
• They participated in their church as frequently as the first generation
• Second generation inherited the first generation Protestant religion
Elimination of Korean Cultural Traditions and lack of Korean Identity among second generation
• Evangelical orientation
• Campus ministries (evangelical movement)
• Worship style is evangelical, very emotional, and fervent (Vineyard style, electric guitar, keyboard)
• Church not about immigrant adjustment but mainly for God and religion
• Made great efforts to disassociate their religion from Korean culture (how and what did they do?) The second generation work hard to eliminate Korean cultural and ethnic traditions from their religion (This makes it hard to retain culture)
• Rarely celebrated Korean traditional and national holidays, did not speak Korean, and eliminated the Shamanism and Confucianism elements (what elements)
• Second generation still served and ate Korean food at the church
• Second generations’ ministry was modeled after the mainstream American churches
• Mostly received financial support from first generation’s churches
• They mostly identify with being Christian first (Yet Kelly Chong’s study finds they identify with all three: Christian, Korean, and American).
• Russell Jeung’s study found that pan-Asian mainline Protestant evangelical churches were very political, celebrated Japanese holidays, and helped with racial issues whereas the Korean churches were evangelical, did not talk about politics, and only wanted to focus on God. His study and others conflicted with Kelly Chong’s argument.
• Chai’s study found to be with people who shared their cultural background was why they attended a Korean church rather than American
• Fellowship and ethnic network helps the second generation which is why the second generation chose a Korean church and because they were evangelical
• Their evangelical orientation left no room for culture in their religion
• Felt church should emphasize the religion not Korean culture
• Second generation church promoted assimilation into the mainstream society
Discussion/Conclusion
• The first generation was successful on transmitting the Protestant religion to the second generation
• The first generation failed to transmit their ethnicity and culture to the second generation
• Conclude that all the second generation retained was Korean food and attending/preferring an ethnic church. That does not mean they retained their culture. It is not enough and these do not represent culture. They lost more.
• Discuss the reasons behind the success and lack of success of transmitting the first generation’s religion and ethnicity.
(The Protestant religion in Korea did not have enough time to incorporate Korean culture etc)
• Thoughts on why the transmission was a success or not a success
• THEORY: Active participation theory works for the first generation but seems wrong for the second generation. The second generation actively participates but does not preserve ethnicity. In addition, the second generation church promotes assimilation. As mentioned in the introduction, religion and ethnicity are usually (historically) connected.
• Emergence of multi-cultural churches
• Future and third generation
• Predict the future trend as see from the literature and case studies
• The importance of this study (reasons)