• Title/Summary/Keyword: immigrants

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A New Challenge to Korean American Religious Identity: Cultural Crisis in Korean American Christianity

  • Ro, Young-Chan
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.18
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    • pp.53-79
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    • 2004
  • This paper explores the relationship between Korean immigrants to the United States and their religious identity from the cultural point of view. Most scholarly studies on Korean immigrants in the United States have been dominated by sociological approach and ethnic studies in examining the social dimension of the Korean immigrant communities while neglecting issues concerning their religious identity and cultural heritage. Most Korean immigrants to America attend Korean churches regardless their religious affiliation before they came to America. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the fact that Korean church has provided a necessary social service for the newly arrived immigrants. Korean churches have been able to play a key role in the life of Korean immigrants. Korean immigrants, however, have shown a unique aspect regarding their religious identity compared to other immigrants communities in the United States. America is a nation of immigrants, coming from different parts of the world. Each immigrant community has brought their unique cultural heritage and religious persuasion. Asian immigrants, for example, brought their own traditional religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism. People from the Middle Eastern countries brought Islamic faith while European Jews brought the Jewish tradition. In these immigrant communities, religious identity and cultural heritage were homo genously harmonized. Jewish people built synagogue and taught Hebrew, Jewish history, culture, and faith. In this case, synagogue was not only the house of worship for Jews but also the center for learning Jewish history, culture, faith, and language. In short, Jewish cultural history was intimately related to Jewish religious history; for Jewish immigrants, learning their social and political history was indeed identical with leaning of their religious history. The same can be said about the relationship between Indian community and Hinduism. Hindu temples serve as the center of Indian immigrantsin providing the social, cultural, and spiritual functions. Buddhist temples, for that matter, serve the same function to the people from the Asian countries. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tibetans, and Thais have brought their respective Buddhist traditions to America and practice and maintain both their religious faith and cultural heritage. Middle Eastern people, for example, have brought Islamic faith to the United States, and Mosques have become the center for learning their language, practicing their faith, and maintaining their cultural heritage. Korean immigrants, unlike any other immigrant group, have brought Christianity, which is not a Korean traditional religion but a Western religion they received in 18th and 19th centuries from the West and America, back to the United States, and church has become the center of their lives in America. In this context, Koreans and Korean-Americans have a unique situation in which they practice Christianity as their religion but try to maintain their non-Christian cultural heritage. For the Korean immigrants, their religious identity and cultural identity are not the same. Although Korean church so far has provides the social and religious functions to fill the need of Korean immigrants, but it may not be able to become the most effective institution to provide and maintain Korean cultural heritage. In this respect, Korean churches must be able to open to traditional Korean religions or the religions of Korean origin to cultivate and nurture Korean cultural heritage.

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Content Analysis of the Life and Culture of the Primary Korean Textbook for Female Marriage Immigrants (여성 결혼이민자 대상 초급한국어교재의 생활문화 내용분석)

  • Choi, Bae-Young
    • Journal of Families and Better Life
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.107-125
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    • 2009
  • This paper analyzes the life and culture contents of the primary Korean textbook for female marriage immigrants and investigates ways to improve the textbook organization in future. The study results are as follows: 1. The textbook must reflect the demands of female marriage immigrants as learners that need to adapt to Korean society. 2. The textbook needs to adopt a circulating disposition in organizing such life and culture contents that female marriage immigrants can obtain and utilize while living in diverse life environments 3. The textbook should also provide multi-cultural elements in order to help female marriage immigrants with the internalization of the complex identity between their home countries and Korea.

A Study on Recognition Regarding International Marriage Immigrants of College Students (대학생의 국제결혼 이주자에 대한 인식)

  • Shin, Mi-A
    • Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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    • v.50 no.3
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    • pp.59-67
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the recognition of international marriage immigrants among college students. It is also aimed to provide a positive insight on international marriage immigrants of college students. This study was used as a descriptive research design. Participants of this study were 468 college students from South Jeollanam Province. Descriptive statistics by using SPSS program(version 12.0) were used for the analysis of the collected data. Important findings were as follows: The mean recognition of the international marriage immigrants was nearer to the moderate level. The recognition of the international marriage immigrants was significantly influenced by korean characteristics of homogeneous nation which shows the importance of blood relationship. Thus it was found out that when considering how to raise the recognition of international marriage immigrants positively, both the characteristics of homogeneous nation and blood relationship are important factors to consider.

Examining the Residential Patterns of Urban Immigrants in Seoul Metropolitan Area

  • Kim, Hyejin;Lee, Jawon
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.6 no.3
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    • pp.37-43
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    • 2018
  • This paper measures and maps multi-dimensional residential segregation of immigrants in Seoul metropolitan area at city/county/district level as well as town level, thereby adding to our understanding of the urban structure and its spatial distribution impacted by immigration. The perspective offered here focuses on the segregation spurred by transnational migrants and their urban settlement. By drawing population data for 79 city/county/district administrative units from the Korea Immigration Service, residential segregation of immigrants in Seoul metropolitan area is measured based on Massey & Denton's four segregation indices: evenness, exposure, concentration and clustering. The empirical findings suggest that Seoul metropolitan area is highly segregated and the areas showing hyper-segregation appear in Seoul city and Gyeonggi province. As immigrants are foreseen to continue to increase in the future, this research contributes both empirically and theoretically to preliminary research on spatial segregation of immigrants by showing how ethnic places are segregated spatially through ethnic networks that support the geographic concentration of minority groups.

The Role and Function of Small Community Library for Foreign Immigrants: the Case Study of Multicultural Library at Wongok-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan-si (국제이주민들을 위한 작은도서관의 역할과 기능: 안산시 단원구 원곡동 다문화작은도서관 운영사례연구)

  • Kim, Yoon Young;Jung, Eun Ju
    • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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    • v.47 no.4
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    • pp.559-578
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    • 2016
  • According to the rapid increase of foreign immigrants, South Korea recently has grown more and more interested in the acceptance of cultural diversity in diverse fields at the whole society. Korea Library Association also has sought the way of multicultural service for foreign immigrants in libraries and many previous researches has suggested those. This paper examines the ways in which small community library functions for foreign immigrants, analyzing on the case of multicultural library located in Wongok-dong, Ansan-si, where about 80% population of residents are foreign immigrants. Ansan multicultural library has two functions in the community. One is the educational place for helping immigrants' settlement and adaptation of South Korea. The other is the cultural place for social integration between immigrants and South Koreans based on mutual understanding and communication. Ultimately this paper shows how values small library in the community has significantly for foreign immigrants.

Acoustic Characteristics of Korean Spoken by the Women Immigrants from Japan and Philippine (여성 결혼이민자들의 한국어 조음에 나타나는 음향음성학 특성 연구 - 일본과 필리핀 출신 여성 결혼이민자들을 대상으로)

  • Jo, Seon-Hui;Kim, Hyun-Gi;Kim, Sun-Jun
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.203-217
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    • 2008
  • The number of Asian women immigrants in Korea is getting bigger and it's important to note that their communication problem in Korean causes not only the difficulty of adapting to Korean society but their children's speech-language disorder. To date there is little research on their acoustics characters and articulatory errors. Therefore, this study focuses on acoustic characters and articulatory error patterns of the women immigrants from Japan and Philippine based on the theory of "contrastive analysis". The subjects were 16 Japanese women immigrants(age: 42.5$\pm$4.4) and 14 Philippine women immigrants(age: 31.64$\pm$6.7) and control group consisted of 10 Korean women(age: 28.3$\pm$1.2). Speech and hearing of all subjects and control group were within normal limits. Speech samples were analyzed in a computer using CSL and data analysis was done on FFT widow for F1, F2, F3 of vowels and on wideband spectrogram for VOT of plosives and africatives. The results of this study were like this; For Japanese women immigrants, they had different articulatory patterns of /e/, /a/, /u/, /o/, /$\varepsilon$/, /m/ from those of Koreans and showed articulatory errors on the fortis and aspirated sounds. The reason is Japanese has only two distinctive characters for plosives and affricates; voicing and voiceless. The Philippine women immigrants also showed the same error patterns as the Japanese women immigrants. Especially the errors on aspirated sounds were prominent because their mother tongue has no distinctive characters about aspirated sounds. For vowels, they showed errors of /a/, /o/, /c/.

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Influences of Stereotypes and Emotions Toward Women Immigrants by Marriage on Social Distances (여성결혼이민자에 대한 고정관념과 감정이 사회적 거리감에 미치는 영향)

  • Jeon, Young-Ja;Jun, Ye-Hwa
    • Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.1-13
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this study was to investigate the social distance of college students toward women immigrants by marriage and influencing factors. The considered factors were stereotypes, emotions and socioeconomic variables. The subjects were 324 college students and the data were collected during October 15-29, 2007. Findings of this study are as follows: the college students' scores of social distance toward women immigrants by marriage were less than midpoint (3.0), which means that the social distance of college students toward women immigrants by marriage was not that high. The college students' score of negative stereotype and positive stereotype were very similar. The score of sympathetic emotion was a little higher than negative emotion and positive emotion. To find the factors affecting social distances, regression analysis was executed. The social distances of students were influenced by negative emotions and positive emotions toward the women immigrants by marriage. Stereotypes toward women immigrants by marriage did not have a significant influence on social distances. These variables accounted for 44% of the variance of social distances.

Development of Measurement of Stress for Female Marriage Immigrants in Korea (여성결혼이민자의 스트레스 측정도구 개발)

  • Park, Min Hee;Yang, Sook Ja
    • Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.518-531
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    • 2012
  • Purpose: This study was conducted in order to develop and test a measurement for assessment of stress of female marriage immigrants in Korea. Methods: Forty four preliminary items were initially developed based on literature review and focus group interviews. Those items were evaluated by experts for content validity, resulting in six factors and 26 items. The 26 items were translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, and English by professional translators and were reviewed by native speakers of each language who are fluent in Korean. For testing validity and reliability, data were collected from 323 female marriage immigrants residing in five regions in Korea. Results: As a result of item analysis, 25 items were selected. Factor analysis yielded 21 items in four factors, including 1) household economic 2) parenting and discrimination 3) cultural and 4) emotional stressors, explaining 61.3% of the total variance of stress of female marriage immigrants in Korea. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was .903 for the overall instrument and .692-.892 for four factors. Conclusion: Measurement of stress for female marriage immigrants in Korea has high validity and reliability. Therefore, this measurement may be utilized for systematic assessment of stress and for identification of areas of support for female marriage immigrants in Korea.

Case Study on Mongolian Marriage-based Immigrants' Adaptation to Korean Family Living (몽골 결혼이민여성의 한국가정생활 적응 사례)

  • Chae, Ock-Hi;Hong, Dalahgi;Song, Bok-Hee
    • Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.171-192
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    • 2009
  • This research is a case study based on face-to-face interviews with eighteen Mongolian marriage-based immigrants. The purpose of the study is to understand Mongolian family living in general and the Mongolian immigrants' family living in Korea in order to help the immigrants in their initial settlement period and the crossculture families by providing them with the information on Mongolian family living. Based on the findings of the study, marriage-based immigrants need a great deal of support for Korean language and adaptation to the new life style during their initial settlement period. Meanwhile, the immigrants that have lived in Korea more than three years can benefit from differentiated types of support such as career reinforcement programs or empowerment programs. Also, their children should be encouraged to become bilingual in their mother's native language with appropriate education and support system, and they will be able to become a great asset to our society in the future.

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Factors related to the Health Literacy of Chinese and Vietnamese Female Marriage Immigrants (베트남, 중국 결혼이주여성의 건강문해력 관련 요인)

  • Cho, Eun Soo;Yang, Sook Ja
    • Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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    • v.34 no.2
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    • pp.225-237
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    • 2020
  • Purpose: This descriptive correlational study examined the acculturation, health literacy, and factors affecting the health literacy of Vietnamese and Chinese female marriage immigrants. Methods: The sample consisted of 90 Vietnamese and 89 Chinese female marriage immigrants who participated in Multicultural Family Support Centers' programs in metropolitan city A. The health literacy was measured by HLI-FMI (Health Literacy Index for Female Marriage Immigrants), acculturation was measured using the Acculturation Index for female marriage immigrants. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Chi-square, one-way ANOVA, Scheffé test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression were performed for data analysis. Results: The Chinese group (M=9.80±2.72) showed a significantly higher health literacy than the Vietnamese group (M=8.07±3.57). The factors affecting health literacy among Chinese were the length of residence (β=.442 p<.001), and adaptation to Korean culture (β=.381, p=.007). Conclusion: To develope graded education programs for promoting the health literacy of Chinese and Vietnamese female marriage immigrants, the length of residence can be considered. Continuously providing a support system to help them adapt to Korean culture can also have a positive effect on health literacy.