UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations

UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Immigration through Education: The Interwoven History of Korean International Students, US Foreign Assistance, and Korean Nation-State Building Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dn32819 Author Cho, Jane Jangeun Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Immigration through Education: The Interwoven History of Korean International Students, US Foreign Assistance, and Korean Nation-State Building By Jane Jangeun Cho A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kerwin Klein, Chair Professor Paula Fass Professor Evelyn Nakano Glenn Fall 2010 © 2010 Jane Jangeun Cho All rights reserved. Abstract Immigration through Education: The Interwoven History of Korean International Students, US Foreign Assistance, and Korean Nation-State Building by Jane Jangeun Cho Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Kerwin Klein, Chair This dissertation identifies Korean international students as immigrants, as conduits of knowledge transfer, and as agents of change. Part of the American Cold War policy was to establish Korea’s higher educational institutions with a core group of US-educated people. Figuring prominently in this story is the US government’s use of foreign assistance as a diplomatic tool to build its influence abroad. The Korean government readily accepted the aid but imprinted its designs on the American blueprint to reflect its own goal of building a modern nation-state. American universities under contract with the US government assisted the redesign of key departments at Seoul National University (SNU) and the establishment of Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS). Planned as model universities or paradigms for other Korean institutes of higher education, both national institutes became the standard bearers of “modern” knowledge. Both projects favored US-educated Koreans. To this end, the majority of the faculty members in the departments selected for restructuring at SNU was sent to the US to be trained and the overwhelming majority of KAIS’ inaugural faculty members held doctoral degrees from the United States. The benefits and prestige associated with an American education in the Korean society contributed to a positive cultural representation of the US as a whole. This caused a growing number of Koreans to immigrate to the US to pursue their studies. These international students were central to Korean American immigration. They were information brokers, the first links to chain migration, and contributors to the changing racial and ethnic make-up of the American population in the twentieth century. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Introduction 1 1. “Koreanization” 13 2. Seoul National University Project, 1954-1962 37 3. Studying Abroad: the SNU Participants 67 4. KAIS and the Question of Intellectual Mobility 82 5. US-educated Elites and the Phenomenon of Study Abroad 106 6. Korean Student Immigrants and Their Immigration Path 126 Conclusion 146 Bibliography 154 i Acknowledgments This was indeed a long journey, and I am grateful to many people for their support. At Berkeley, my indebtedness to the late Professor Jon Gjerde is longstanding and deep. I was fortunate to have had him as my advisor for much of my career as a graduate student. He was a man of immense intellect and character who showed me what it means to be a historian. Professor Kerwin Klein graciously allowed me to finish this work under his guidance. A conversation with him early on led me to this topic, and our subsequent discussions helped me to better organize and clarify my thoughts. I am very thankful to Professor Paula Fass for her support in taking me to the finish line. I am grateful to Professor Evelyn Nakano Glenn and her ability to cheer discouraged souls, mine included, with her warmth. Many thanks to Mabel Lee, who can answer any and all questions. This work and my quality of life were enhanced by the generous support I received from the University of California Graduate Opportunity Program, Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies, and the Academy of Korean Studies. I also want to thank my sister-in-law Sunny Park, my dissertation writing partner Taejin Hwang, and fellow graduate student Phil Wolgin who read and commented on chapters of this work. I am profoundly grateful to everyone who shared their life stories with me. Without you, I would not have finished this work. I also thank professor Miguel Tinker Salas of Pomona College, my undergraduate adviser, and Roshni Rustomji Kerns, my mentor and good friend. Finally, my family. My mom and dad’s courage and determination which brought us to the US led to my life-long interest in Korean American immigration, my history. My brothers and their families accompanied me through this trek, alerting me to important sources that I would have otherwise missed. My parents-in-law gave their love and support. Last but by no means least, my thanks goes to my husband Joogy and our beautiful children Madeleine and Felix for being my silver lining through this storm-filled journey. Thank you! ii Introduction Some time between the two world wars, the world’s intellectual center began to shift from Europe to the US. From philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller to educators like Nicholas Murray Butler and Stephen Duggan, American committed themselves to international educational exchange and knowledge transfer. They established agencies and institutes to coordinate educational exchanges, and created programs and scholarships to attract foreign students and scholars to the US. Between the two world wars, the American government also began allocating funds to “international education.” However, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor that forced the US to abandon its isolationist stance and significantly invest in the education of other nations. America’s growing sense of obligation and desire to educate the world paralleled its growing political and economic strength and aspiration. Following World War Two, both American and Soviet governments used their humanitarian aid and technical assistance for strategic ends. Both the US and USSR strategically gave educational assistance to foreign countries as a significant part of their “people-to-people diplomacy.” The share of world’s students, especially those students from developing nations, gravitated towards these two “patron” nations. International students at the individual level, universities at the institutional level, and knowledge transfer on the national level were significant components of the cultural diplomacy that both the USSR and the US launched, and among the most serious and long-lasting of all of their postwar programs. However, it would be misleading to call these activities simply diplomatic since the military and economic might of the US and the Soviet Union were ever present. Nor would it be accurate to call these interactions imperial since the one-sided connotation of the term ignores the receiving countries’ active role in soliciting and modifying the aid to their advantage. In Korea, imported US knowledge and institutional models mutated to better reflect the conditions and needs of Korea. Yet, the main source of funding flowed in from the US and the number of US educated decision makers in Korea grew. The Korean government and its elite’s reliance and connection with the US cultivated a cultural practice of seeking solutions to problems abroad. The US became a place with personal solutions for discontented Koreans and many hoped to immigrate to the US. Those who entered the US, including the international students, helped fuel a vibrant Korean American community in the US. The diplomatic exchanges and activities between the US and Korea triggered a chain of interconnected negotiations. The US government provided its assistance to Korea to generate American goodwill, which in turn would persuade Koreans to comply with US policies; at the same time, the Korean government used the aid to rebuild its country according to its plans. Though the governments negotiated the conditions of the aid, its reception and utilization depended on the people, place, and time in which the projects were undertaken. The confluence of influences, exerted by both the giving and receiving countries, determined the persuasive power of the American influence. A large body of studies focuses on the non-coercive, persuasive power of the United States, but few have addressed the ways that higher education and immigration are linked together with American cultural diplomacy. Joseph Nye’s concept of “soft power” can help us to understand how the America can build and maintain its power 1 through non-military and non-economic measures. In his important work, Power in the Global Information Age, Nye defined soft power as “getting others to want the outcomes that you want – [it] co-opts people rather than coerces them.” He continues, “The ability to establish references tends to be associated with intangible power resources such as an attractive culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority.”1 Nye emphasizes that through soft power, the dominant country exerts it primacy over other countries, arguing that the politics of primacy should not be confused with empire. In this way, power is measured not by a state’s resources, but by its ability to change the behavior of others. Examined through this lens, most if not all humanitarian dimension of American overseas involvement contain a strategic, political purpose and have the ability to create soft power. US education has been a “power resource” and an influential contributor to American soft power in Korea. Though the US has held what I call the primacy of influence, Korea selectively chose what it would accept from the US, modifying the aid received to reflect its unique culture and circumstances.

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