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Korean Immigrants' Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje

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Korean Immigrants' Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje Revista Iberoamericana 23.3 (2012): 221-271. Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje: A History of Race-Class Dynamics and Asian Immigration in Yucatán, Mexico* Hahkyung Kim YONSEI UNIVERSITY Kim, Hahkyung (2012), Korean immigrants’ place in the discourse of Mestizaje: A history of race-class dynamics and Asian immigration in Yucatán, mexico. Abstract At the turn of the nineteenth century, Mexico experienced a series of historic events: the Caste War, the rise of the henequen industry, and the Porfirian project of modernization. These events, combined with the immigration policies at the time, begot an increase of East Asian immigration, which complicated the race-class dynamics especially in the state of Yucatán. Despite the arrival of East Asian immigrants initially as laborers, the changes in their class identity in the process of permanent settlement resulted in the creation of new social categories and the difficulty in positioning them in the existent social dynamics. Amid such difficulty was the contradiction in the Mexican reception of foreign immigrants. Even though Mexico welcomed East Asians in the first place, they were later excluded from the discourse of mestizaje. The account of the first wave of Korean immigration to Mexico is most notable as a case that demonstrates the contradictory attitudes and the complexity of the race-class dynamics in Mexico at the time. Forgotten by Korea due to a political turmoil in East Asia and disregarded by Mexico due to their diminishing economic value and small size, the Korean immigrants were indeed without a place in terms of national and cultural identity in the host country. That is, while Koreans as physical individuals inevitably mixed into Mexican society both biologically and culturally, Korean as an ethnicity was unable to become a part of what constituted Mexicanidad. By looking into the * 본 논문은 서울대학교 라틴아메리카연구소 주최 2012년제3회“라틴아메리카지역 연구 대학(원)생 논문공모전”최우수상 수상 논문임. Hahkyung Kim (lack of) Mexican references to Korean immigrants in official government correspondences and Yucatecan print media from 1904 to 1909, this thesis reinterprets the significance of Korean immigration from a Mexican perspective. Unlike most analyses that tend to read Korean immigration only as an extension Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje: A History Race-Class Dynamics and Asian Immigration Yucatán, Mexi of Korean history, it contextualizes the event within Mexican history. It also identifies the economic and political interests of the Mexican government and Yucatecan plantation owners in relation to its Korean population. Key words Porfiriato, race, henequen, Korean immigration, mestizaje, Mexico, class, Caste War, Yucatán I. Introduction In May 2005, the Korean community of Mérida, Yucatán, celebrated the centennial anniversary of the arrival of the first 1,033 Korean immigrant laborers who had been contracted to work for four years in the henequen plantations of the region. During the week-long Henequen Festival funded by the Korean embassy, the building hosting the Asociación Coreana re- opened after four decades and the Hospital Amistad México-Corea was unveiled along with a commemorative monument. 1)Canal Once TV and MBC, two leading public broadcasting networks respectively from Mexico and Korea, also co-produced a three-part documentary titled Henequen exploring the history of Korean immigration to Mexico. In an interview from Henequen, the then First Lady of Mexico, co Marta Sahagun de Fox, expressed “gratitude towards the Koreans that came over one hundred years ago and towards their contribution to Mexico” and 1) Asociación Coreana is a group/building founded by first and second generation Koreans in Mexico in 1950 that hosted cultural activities and served as a headquarter for Korean-Mexican support for the Korean independence movement; Hospital Amistad México-Corea is a medical institution built in 2005 and jointly funded by the Korean and Mexican governments. described the first Korean arrival as “the beginning of a friendship between 이베로아메리카연구 Revista Iberoamericana the two countries.”2) Backed by Fox’s friendly political gesture, the Korean press alluded to the festival and the co-production of the documentary as a diplomatic feat that would contribute to Mexican-Korean relation. The referred significance of the commemoration, however, hollows out the immigrant descendants’ national, cultural, and even racial identity by 23.3 emphasizing the Korean perspective on the history. The subject of commemoration had been the Korean-Mexicans whose identity is rooted in both countries with equal importance, if not more so in Mexico due to the discontinued inflow of Korean immigrants after their first arrival.3) However, 222 223 the Korean media undisputedly concentrated on painting the immigrants and their descendants as patriots that retained their Korean identity and the Mexican media did not seem to have problem complying with such depiction—the descendants were by all means Korean, not Mexican, to both cultures at the moment. The relative lack of active endorsement of Korean immigrants as Mexicans in part of the Mexican media and government, in fact, reflects their consistent attitude towards Korean immigrants since 1905. 2) “A estos coreanos que vinieron desde hace cien años les apreciamos muchísimo toda la aportación que han hecho a nuestro país y les recibimos en México como siempre los sabemos hacer los mexicanos con los brazos abiertos. [...] empieza la amistad entre los dos países” (Henequen 2005). 3) It is also notable that the hyphenated Korean descendants in Mexico were not active agents in the internationally scaled production but merely thematic subjects. The event committee in charge of the festival, Comité del Centenario de la Inmigración Coreana a México, was headed by a more recent Korean immigrant, Gwang Suk Lee, and funded by the Korean government. The presence of the first generation of Korean immigrants that were still alive along with their families was felt only in the festival’s inauguration ceremonies and a handful of interviews from Henequen. Although there have been efforts to connect the original Asociación Coreana founded by the first Korean immigrants and their racially mixed descendants and the later Asociación Coreana consisting in contemporary Korean immigrants, such is only a recent phenomenon. Hahkyung Kim That is, Mexico may have welcomed their economic contribution but had excluded them from the nationalist discourse of mestizaje, an ideological passport to Mexicanidad. Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje: A History Race-Class Dynamics and Asian Immigration Yucatán, Mexi Commonly understood as the racial mixing of the Spanish and the indigenous Amerindians, mestizaje has been employed as a political ideology of modern national identity in post-revolutionary Mexico. At a glance, mestizaje seems to celebrate racial and cultural integration; however, it serves more as a mask of harmony that overlooks the racial division prevalent in Mexican society. It disregards not only the economic and political disempowerment of the indigenous but also the multicultural presence of various immigrant populations. Hence, investigating the presence of immigrants in pre-revolutionary Mexico is crucial in questioning the supposed validity in the multicultural aspect of mestizaje. This thesis seeks to highlight the ambiguous and exclusive nature of Mexican mestizaje especially in the state of Yucatán by re-evaluating the significance of Korean immigration to Mexico. It identifies Mexico’s disregard for multicultural presence—or more specifically, the presence of Koreans in this case—as the equivalent to a cultural shock resulting from a contradiction between the reality of Koreans as Asian immigrants and the racial/ethnic stereotypes based on the pre-existing race-class dynamics.4) Such co 4) Like any other concepts used for social categorization, race and ethnicity are as fabricated a notion as class is. It is difficult to distinguish the definition of the terms race and ethnicity, but this essay will use them under the following premise: (1) the categorization of race is based more on phenotypical differences whereby biological and ancestral origins are important and (2) that of ethnicity is based more on cultural differences whereby the origin in terms of cultural geography is most determinant in its definition (Wade 1997, 14-21). For example, race would refer to categories like blanco, ladino, mestizo, indio, and Asian; ethnicity would refer to those that accentuate differences in cultural practice like Maya, Yaqui, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. shock seems to have made it difficult for Mexican society to designate a social 이베로아메리카연구 Revista Iberoamericana category and a stereotype to Korean immigrants in accordance with those of other Asian immigrants. Unlike how Chinese immigrants were dubbed as the agents of el peligro amarillo, negative stereotyping or any reference to Koreans were not prevalent at the time. Yucatán, in particular, seems to have had much difficulty with the non-place of Korean immigrants in its socio- 23.3 economic system. That the first Korean immigrants landed on the Yucatecan state, therefore, is of great importance due to its already complex race-class dynamics.5) To demonstrate the historical background of the Yucatecan perception of 224 225 race and class that molded Mexico’s contradictory attitude toward Korean immigrants, this essay will point to four social phenomena: (1) the ambiguity
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