Asian American History - Essay Example

1.0 INTRODUCTION The genesis of the Korean immigration to the United s began in the 1903 and extended through 1920. Most of these immigrants were the plantation manual workers and their families who immigrated to the Hawaii at this particular period1. The immigrants had different reasons for moving to the United States; some of these reasons included the escape from famine in their country, escape from the Japanese colonial state in their country, search for a better living opportunity and some were just attracted by the promises that the American Christian missionary made to them2. Other than these reasons, other immigrants continue to arrive in the United States with very different reasons all along. These, came with the reasons of uniting with their families and these comprised of the wives and their children of the American military men who had served during the Korean War and the orphans who had been adopted by America families while others entered United States for the search of better education and opportunities for their children. 3 In this particular paper, we are going to look at the challenges and the difficulties that the Koreans faced whereas in the United States. Some of these challenges included, economical challenges, and the change of their language also became one of their challenges that they faced while in tier new country, the struggle to the access to the education for their children, the change in their culture and even the difficulties of adaptation and integration in their new environment4. These, are going to be discussed in the text and later to look at the way they are trying to catch up with life in the United States to date. With this, we will also discuss the ways in which they invented so as to enable them to survive in the region. 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW Among the challenges that the Korean immigrants faced, they were later grouped into categories such as the 2.1 LANGUAGE BARRIER The immigrants were the typical Korean of who were used to speaking the Korean languages in their country. When they came to the United States, the language obstacle became the main challenge that the first Korean immigrants experienced in their new country5. As much as they were being taught English as foreign language in their country, they were only allowed to remember the terminologies and the grammatical rules in the language, this did not give them the opportunity to be able to put into practice, listen in and converse with any of the native English speaker so as to enable them to develop their skills in the English language6. With this language hurdle among the immigrants, they could not be able to get the high level opportunities in the job market and thus it left them with the low level positions in the workplaces as the farm workers and even stone diggers. This was because, they could not correspond to the American employers or the service providers effectively to pass their information across to be understood well enough by their employers, and because of this, the employers ended up placing them at the low level where it needs no much communication skills to the managerial section7. As much as the Koreans immigrants were not good in the languages in the United States, they could not be able to attend the classes offered to them for the purpose of improving their communication skills. This was because, they were too busy on their daily duties of farming and any other activities that they could not spare time to go and learn the language8. This was even tricky as they could not abandon the job as it was the only sources of income to maintain the family. 2.2 CULTURAL CHALLENGES Other than the challenge of the language, the immigrants also faces the difficulties of being too attached to their country, society and their culture. This is because, the Koreans have the majority of the harmonized societies in the whole world where as that of the United States is of culturally diverse. This is seen from the ethnic and the cultural points of view, this is to the contrary of the United States, cultures and societies whereby many people of many diverse tribal and cultural backgrounds tend to live together in a in a “melting pot”9. A reaction of Koreans that settle in a foreign country which reveals a more pluralistic ethnic and cultural symphony is to remain somewhat out-of-the-way. As a result, they tend to face more difficulties of adaptation, incorporation and acculturation. This is seen clearly as the Koreans are used to have harmony with others and then they come to a country where there is individualism, in that everybody does his or her things on his own without consulting anybody for advice10. 2.3 ECONOMICAL CHALLENGES Due to the abrupt change in the environment, they were forced to leave agricultural activities that they were doing in their home country of which assisted them in generating income to sustain their families11. With this, they could no longer sustain their family accordingly as they had no jobs to provide income. They were later forced to engage themselves with small activities as farming in the US plantations just to be sure of at least having something on the table for the family12. 2.4 SHIFT IN OCCUPATION STATUS Shift in the occupation status. This was the main challenge that the Korean immigrants faced while in the United States. As much as they were educated with even degrees in different fields and even professional skills, they were not given that opportunity to work in a better environment as those given to the Americans of the same standards of education like them3. This was due to their inability to talk to their native English language, as it became a hindrance to them to even communicate to their employers and even to their service contributors13. 2.5 DIFFICULTIES OF ADAPTATION AND INTEGRATION This particular difficulty was mainly concerned with the difference in the mode of the Korea and that of the United States in term of their geography, population composition their history and their cultures that they do abide by them closely14. The American is seen as being a society which is ethnically heterogeneous while Korea is quite harmonized. This gave tem much difficulty in their stay during the begging days till causing them to experience the cultural shock together with their families at large15. Their complexity of combination into home culture financial hardship led the community to keep itself attractive to a large extent isolated from the restricted communities and the rich cultural life. This infected their image to the whole world as the world perceives them as being a group of set aside and inner directed individuals with very little interest in communal and cultural intermingle with the people fro other cultural groups. 2.6 EDUCATION CHALLENGES The first Korean immigrants, were too concern with their children education although as much as they did so, the system could not give them the opportunity to practice the native language practically so as to enable tem to be fluent as the common united states citizen16. In result, the children still could not communicate adequately with their employers and even the service providers. 2.7 INADEQUATE HEALTH FACILITIES The first immigrants in the United States were not accessible to the health facilities in the country17. This was mainly as the result of communication breakdown between them and the workers at the hospitals in the United States18. With this, the immigrants could not be able to get assistance and in the long run, they began to be shy even to seek for the health services for treatment whenever they were unwell. 2.8 HOW THEY LIVED In order to reduce their difficulty of living in their new country, most of them got assistance from the protestants and the catholic churches of whom helped them in organizing financial and business networks that could assist them in improving their economic status at present19.to be able to maintain their families, the immigrants engaged themselves to small business activities that could enable them earn a living from it. This could also support their community projects which they had started and thus enabling them to be able to get loans from the societies and the unions at very low interest rates which could support them in maintaining their families and other demands for the family20. Some of them could depend on the help from their respective relatives of who had gone to the United States earlier than them21. This forced them to keep contacts and even close relation with relatives and friends who had been their earlier or even were still at the region at that present time22. Some of the parents could force their son or daughters to get married or even marry the American so as to get that opportunity to be served as the Americans without any segregations of language or even the level of opportunity given to them at the work places23. CONCLUSION To wrap up this paper we can say that, as much as the Koreans immigrants faced some of the challenges and difficulties in the beginning when they migrated to the United States24, they have now adapted to the system and are now comfortable to live in the new country. This has enabled them to settle down just as any other citizen of the US citizen they do now get the same opportunities in term of the education and even the employment aspect. To do this some have engaged themselves to various forms of activities like doing of businesses just to be able to sustain their families25. With these efforts they have now settled just like any other United States citizen. REFERENCE Stone J.H (2004); Culture & Disability: Providing Culturally Competent Service. SAGE Amazon.com Greenfield P.M & Cocking R.R, (1994); Cross Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Amazon.com Ember C.R, Ember M & Skoggard I.A (2004); Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant & Refugee Cultures around the World. Springer, Amazon.com Guimaraes L.L (2006). The Korean Community in Brazil: Challenges, Achievements & Prospects; Cheju National University, Jejudo, South Korea Shim Y.R (2007). The relationship between Degree of acculturation & Adjustment Difficulties among Korea immigrants; Taylor & Francis Ltd Read More