Discrimination and Racism

Although Korean Chinese were seen as the “model minority” in the Chinese community, owning higher literacy rate and income, as well as the fact that they were not faced with severe exclusion and violence, the issues that they most often times face remain to be unpublished to the public. However, they had been faced with subtle ethnic discrimination from the majority group in China in various ways. For example, according to Volume 34, Issue 2 of a research on adolescence of Korean Chinese, some Korean Chinese college students felt unaccepted by others solely due to their Korean heritage, endured bad treatment by others because of their influent Chinese, and some felt hard in finding work.

At the same time, back in South Korea, their “motherland”, where most Korean Chinese felt closely connected to due their ethnic and cultural roots, they were viewed as dangerous by the South Korean public. Many labelled them as “illegal immigrants” and “criminals”.

These types of discrimination was largely experienced by first generation Korean immigrants, but also increasingly dominant in second generation Korean Chinese youth, both through media platforms and in person interactions.