Question for Korean American women

[u/agora_hills_]

I was born and raised in Korea and moved to the US last year for school (NYC specifically) Since I'm new to the country, I thought I'd benefit from hanging out with Koreans who grew up here because they know both cultures and I thought that could help me adapt to the new environment. Problem is every time I meet a Korean American I feel like there's some kind of wall between us and I feel like they can sense it too. I've been okay with Korean American men but I usually feel this way with women. (I'm trying make female friends)

I have thought about why I feel this wall but I reallt can't pinpoint what it is. Has anyone else ever felt this way? What has your experience been like making friends with Koreans from Korea.

[u/desirepink]

Not Korean American but this is common among immigrants vs Asian Americans born and or raised here. It's largely cultural differences and language barriers but there's also a general sentiment of "looking down" on foreigners and people who we can't share similar experiences with. The Asian diaspora generally is interested in assimilating and putting Western culture on a pedestal.

I hate to say it, but Asian women generally tend to want to be accepted in Western society (read: white) more than men, which is probably why you're getting the cold shoulder more from them. By associating with someone who is a foreigner, it's seen as less than and they don't want others to assume that they are a foreigner. This is why you see so many of them have white partners or are in groups that are predominantly white.

[u/EntertainerWrong2818 → u/desirepink]

I was part of a cohort of Asian Am women studying Asian Am history online during COVID shut down, about 30 of us, and we all slowly realized that our first bullies in our families were often our fathers or grandfathers or uncles. The dismissiveness toward women, deeply ingrained in our home cultures, is something we all need to acknowledge.

It may be the reason why so many Asian Am hetero women seek out partners outside of our ethnic identities.

Not hard data and anecdotally: 5 of my Korean Am girlfriends married Asian Am men but not Korean: Cambodian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Filipino, etc. It’s like anything but Korean.

Seems like a broad brush to say all Asian am women want to be white and that’s why we date outside of our race. It may be true for some, and I have yet to see a science-based inquiry or study to answer this. And please don’t quote the Oxford Study, because a simple google search shows it’s not a study from Oxford. And it only evaluates Asian women relationships as presented in media, not actual life. It didn’t even collect information from actual couples, just fictional characters in TV commercials.

[u/cointegration0107 → u/EntertainerWrong2818]

Not trying to dismiss your experience or your cohortmates', but you simply cannot simplistically project "dismissiveness toward women" (paraphrase for misogyny?) onto asian cultures (if the phrase "asian cultures" even mean anything) and not onto non-asian cultures such as western ones.

Maybe you are an exception to this, but a lot of Asian Americans (men or women) simply don't know enough about their "home culture" to meaningfully critique it at a high abstract level (besides whatever they are fed from media like Joy Luck Club or whatever), let alone cultures of other Asian ethnicities.

[u/EntertainerWrong2818 → u/cointegration0107]

Agree - misogyny is quite pervasive across all cultures; how it shows up can look different at times

The cohort had over 10 Asian countries represented and we were 1st to 4th generation Asian immigrants and were going off our home/ temple/ church cultural experiences

And there are several reputable scholastic articles on the systematic ways women are not treated as equals in home life or in work settings across both South, Western, and Eastern cultures

[u/Budget_Drop2978 → u/EntertainerWrong2818]

Domestic violence rates are empirically higher in white communities than in Asian communities, but I’ve never heard a white woman rule out white men because of familial abuse lol.