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Diasporic Returns to the
Ethnic Homeland
The Korean Diaspora in Comparative Perspective

Edited by Takeyuki Tsuda

and Changzoo Song
Diasporic Returns to the Ethnic Homeland
 Takeyuki Tsuda · Changzoo Song
Editors

Diasporic Returns
to the Ethnic
Homeland
The Korean Diaspora in Comparative Perspective
Editors
Takeyuki Tsuda Changzoo Song
Arizona State University Asian Studies Department
Tempe, AZ, USA University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand

ISBN 978-3-319-90762-8 ISBN 978-3-319-90763-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90763-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941085

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © Seunghyeon I/EyeEm

Cover design: Emma Hardy

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer

International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant

funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (AKS-2012-BAA-2101).

v
 Contents

Part I Introduction

1 Korean Diasporic Returns 3

Takeyuki Tsuda

2 The Causes of Diasporic Return: A Comparative

Perspective 17
Takeyuki Tsuda and Changzoo Song

3 Neither “Fish nor Fowl”: An Examination of South

Korea’s Diaspora Engagement Policies 35
Timothy C. Lim, Dong-Hoon Seol and Atsuko Sato

Part II Korean Ethnic Return Migration

4 Joseonjok and Goryeo Saram Ethnic Return Migrants

in South Korea: Hierarchy Among Co-ethnics and
Ethnonational Identity 57
Changzoo Song

vii
viii    Contents

5 Hierarchical Ethnic Nationhood in the Formal

Membership and Beyond: Joseonjok and Formal
and Substantive Citizenship in Their Ethnic Homeland 79
Nora H. Kim

6 Ethnic Korean Returnees from Japan in Korea:

Experiences and Identities 99
Sug-In Kweon

Part III First and 1.5 Generation Korean Return Migration

7 Ethnic Return Migration of Miguk Hanin (Korean

Americans): Entanglement of Diaspora and
Transnationalism 121
Christian J. Park

8 Uri Nara, Our Country: Korean American Adoptees

in the Global Age 143
Kim Park Nelson

9 Here and There: Return Visit Experiences of Korean

Health Care Workers in Germany 161
Yonson Ahn

Part IV Comparative Perspectives: Ethnic Return

Migration in the Asian Diaspora

10 Ethnic Return Migration and Noncitizen Hierarchies

in South Korea and Japan 179
Erin Aeran Chung

11 Japanese American Ethnic Return Migration Across

the Generations 199
Takeyuki Tsuda
 Contents    ix

12 Alternatives to Diasporic Return: Imagining

Homelands and Temporary Visits Among
Hmong Americans 219
Sangmi Lee

Conclusion: Interrogating Return—Ambivalent

Homecomings and Ethnic Hierarchies 239

Index 255
 Notes on Contributors

Yonson Ahn is a Professor, Chair of Korean Studies, and Deputy

Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of East Asian Studies
(IZO) at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. She received her PhD
degree in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Warwick in
the UK in 2000. She currently serves as President of The Association for
Korean Studies in German Speaking Countries.
Erin Aeran Chung is the Charles D. Miller Associate Professor of
East Asian Politics in the Department of Political Science, the Director
of the East Asian Studies Program, and the Co-Director of the Racism,
Immigration, and Citizenship (RIC) Program at the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Nora H. Kim received her Ph.D. in sociology from University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 and currently is an Associate Professor of
Sociology at University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, USA.
Sug-In Kweon is a Professor of Anthropology at the Seoul National
University. She graduated from the Seoul National University and did
her Ph.D. at Stanford University. She served as the Vice President of the
Korean Cultural Anthropology Association.
Sangmi Lee is an Assistant Professor of anthropology in the School of
Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University. She earned
her Ph.D. in anthropology from Oxford University and conducted
research on the Hmong diaspora.

xi
xii    Notes on Contributors

Timothy C. Lim is a Professor of Political Science at the California

State University Los Angeles. He earned his MA in international
affairs from Columbia University and Ph.D. in political science at the
University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
Christian J. Park is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology
at Hanyang University ERICA, South Korea. He is also Head of
International Cooperation at the Institute of Globalization and
Multicultural Studies (IGMS) under the auspices of Hanyang University.
Kim Park Nelson is an Associate Professor of American Multicultural
Studies at the Minnesota State University at Moorhead. She has a Ph.D.
in American studies from the University of Minnesota.
Atsuko Sato is a Lecturer in Political Science at California State
University, Los Angeles.
Dong-Hoon Seol is a Professor of Sociology at Chonbuk National
University. He earned his Ph.D. from Seoul National University.
Changzoo Song is a Senior Lecturer in Korean and Asian studies at the
University of Auckland in New Zealand. He earned his Ph.D. in politi-
cal science from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is the Director
of the CUPKS (Core University Programme in Korean Studies) at the
University of Auckland.
Takeyuki Tsuda is a Professor of Anthropology in the School of
Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
After receiving his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1997 from the University
of California at Berkeley, he was a Collegiate Assistant Professor at
the University of Chicago and then served as Associate Director of
the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of
California at San Diego.
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 “Korean carrot” salad with Uzbek-style bread and tea
at a Goryeo saram restaurant in Seoul 71
Fig. 4.2 Seaweed salad with bread 72

xiii
 PART I

Introduction
 CHAPTER 1

Korean Diasporic Returns

Takeyuki Tsuda

Two Types of Diasporic Return

The contemporary Korean diaspora consists of 7.185 million Korean
nationals and descendants scattered across the globe.1 During the
mid-nineteenth century, Koreans began migrating to Manchuria and
the Maritime Province, which became Russian territory in 1860.
Between 1903 and 1905, over 7000 Koreans migrated to Hawaii.
After the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early twentieth century,
Korean migration to Hawaii was ended, and instead, many Koreans fled
to Manchuria and the Russian Far East. After the 1920s, an increasing
number of Koreans went to Japan as workers under Japanese colonial
rule. After the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, a large number of Korans
were forced to migrate to Japan as workers, soldiers, and comfort
women. After the Korean War, significant numbers of Korean orphans
and war brides migrated mainly to the U.S. In more recent decades,
large numbers of South Koreans have moved to the U.S., but also to
Canada, Europe, South America, Oceania, and other Asian countries,
mainly for economic, business, professional, or educational reasons.

T. Tsuda (*)
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

© The Author(s) 2019 3

T. Tsuda and C. Song (eds.), Diasporic Returns to the Ethnic Homeland,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90763-5_1
4 T. TSUDA

When compared to the diasporas of other Asian countries, the Korean

diaspora is not the largest in terms of total population. However, a very
high proportion of people of Korean descent live in the diaspora outside
of the homeland. Since the population of South and North Korea was
approximately 76.6 million in 2016, this means almost 9.5% of all peo-
ples of Korean descent reside in the diaspora abroad. Although China
has the largest Asian diaspora (at approximately 50 million people),2 it is
only 3.6% of the total population of China. Likewise, the second largest
Asian diaspora, the Indian diaspora (estimated at 30.8 million peoples) is
only 2.3% of the population of India. Other Asian diasporas also consist
of small percentages of their respective country’s populations (4.4% for
Vietnam, 3.1% for Indonesia, 2.8% for Japan, and 1.6% for Thailand).
Only the Filipino diaspora rivals the Korean one, with 10.1% of all peo-
ples of Filipino descent living abroad in the diaspora.
However, it must be noted that a significant amount of the Korean
diaspora is a product of migratory dispersal after World War II, a vast
majority of which was from South Korea. Most Koreans who have
migrated to various countries in the last several decades are South
Koreans, and emigration from North Korea has been restricted to a small
flow of migrants who cross the border into China (some of whom even-
tually end up in South Korea as refugees) and Russia. Therefore, the per-
centage of those in the Korean diaspora who trace their origins to the
current territory of South Korea (including before World War II when
the Korean peninsula was partitioned) is proportionately higher. In fact,
nearly 13% of South Korean nationals currently reside in various coun-
tries abroad, and this excludes their descendants who were born abroad
and have also become part of the Korean diaspora.
However, the Korean diaspora has a significant impact on South
Korea not only because so many people have left (and continue to
leave), but also because a significant number of them have returned. Like
other diasporas around the world, the Korean diaspora consists of not
only migratory dispersal from the homeland but also a return migration
flow from various Korean diasporic communities around the world back
to the homeland. Many of these diasporic returnees are ethnic return
migrants, descendants of earlier Korean migrants who were born and
raised abroad and are “returning” to their ethnic homeland, their coun-
try of ancestral origin. They are primarily Korean Chinese and former
Soviet Koreans, many of whom are settling long term or permanently
in South Korea, but smaller numbers of Korean Americans and Korean
Japanese have also returned, usually as temporary sojourners.
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 5

South Korea is perhaps the Asian country that is the most affected by
ethnic return migration. There are approximately 776,000 ethnic return
migrants currently residing in South Korea, which consists of 39% of the
country’s immigrant population and 1.5% of the country’s entire pop-
ulation. This is a larger percentage of ethnic return migrants than any
other Asian country. The other Asian country with a significant ethnic
return migrant population is Japan, which has a large number of n ­ ikkeijin
(Japanese-descent) immigrants from South America, who are mainly
Japanese Brazilians, as well as a small number of Japanese Americans.
However, in 2014, there were probably only about 237,000 nikkeijin for-
eigners in Japan, which is about 11% of the population of foreigners legally
registered in Japan and only about 0.2% of the entire country’s popula-
tion. Because most ethnic return migrants are from developing countries
and work as unskilled foreign laborers in their ancestral homelands, their
numbers are larger in rich, developed Asian countries such as South Korea
and Japan because of the greater economic incentives for diasporic return.
In addition to ethnic return migration, there is a second type of dias-
poric return. This consists of Korean nationals who have emigrated from
South Korea, resided abroad for significant periods of time in various
countries around the world, and have then return migrated back to Korea.
Unlike ethnic return migrants, they are first- and 1.5-generation immi-
grants from abroad who are returning to their natal homeland, their coun-
try of birth. We simply use the term “return migration” to refer to this
type of diasporic return, in contrast to “ethnic return migration.” Many
of them continue to reside abroad and make only brief return visits to see
family, relatives, and friends, but others have returned for long-term stays
or plan to remain in South Korea permanently. There are also repeat and
circular migrants, who return home from abroad, reside in South Korea
temporarily, and then migrate to another country or circulate back and
forth between their home and host countries. In addition, a small number
of Korean adoptees, raised by American families in U.S. since they were
babies, have returned to their natal homeland, usually for temporary stays.
Although there are no reliable estimates of the total number of these first-
and 1.5-generation return migrants, their number is probably quite large
in comparison with other Asian countries, given the substantial population
of Koreans residing abroad and the country’s relative wealth and prosper-
ity, which would encourage a number of them to eventually return.
Both types of diasporic return are becoming increasingly prevalent
not only in the Korean diaspora but among various diasporas around the
world. In recent decades, the total volume of ethnic return migration has
6 T. TSUDA

increased significantly (Tsuda 2009b: 1–3). The most prominent exam-

ple is the millions of Jews in the diaspora who have return migrated to
Israel since World War II. In Western Europe, 4 million ethnic German
descendants from various Eastern Europe countries return migrated to
their ethnic homeland between 1950 and 1999. Other European coun-
tries, such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Hungary, have received
much smaller populations of ethnic return migrants from their diasporas
in Latin American and Eastern Europe. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, 2.8 million members of the Russian diaspora living in Eastern
Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus returned to their ethnic home-
land between 1990 and 1998. In East Asia, over one million second-
and third-generation Japanese and Korean descendants scattered across
Latin America, Eastern Europe, and China have return migrated to their
ancestral homelands since the late 1980s. China and Taiwan have also
been receiving ethnic Chinese descendants from various Southeast Asian
countries. There has even been limited ethnic return migration to various
Southeast Asian countries, especially to Vietnam and the Philippines (see
Chan and Tran 2011; Nguyen-Akbar 2014).
Most of these ethnic return migrants originate in developing countries
in the Global South and migrate primarily for economic reasons to richer
ethnic homelands in the Global North. Relatively, few are migrating spe-
cifically to reconnect with their ancestral roots or to explore their ethnic
heritage, except for possibly a small number of ethnic return migrants
from developed countries (see Tsuda 2009c: 24). Although most eth-
nic return migration in the contemporary world is voluntary, there have
been historical cases of involuntary, forced return migrations of perse-
cuted ethnic minorities to their ancestral homelands. Examples include
Jewish refugees of the Holocaust who “returned” to a newly created
Israeli state, and ethnic Germans who were expelled after World War II
and resettled in Western or Eastern Germany.
The return migration of first- and 1.5-generation immigrants from
various diasporic communities back to their natal homelands has been
an important part of global migration for a very long time. In fact, such
returns to the homeland have been more the norm than the exception
in human migratory history (Xiang 2013: 7). Even centuries ago, when
traveling across national borders was much more difficult and less prev-
alent, return was an integral aspect of the migration process, and many
immigrants around the world eventually returned to the countries
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 7

from which they originally came (see also Oxfeld and Long 2004: 2–3;
Stefansson 2004: 6). With increased globalization and the greater speed
and reduced cost of international travel in recent decades, the volume of
return migration has grown. Like ethnic return migration, first-generation
return migration can be of various types. Much of it consists of the volun-
tary return of economic labor migrants as well as high-skilled professional
and student migrants back to their home countries. However, there are
also various types of “forced” return migrations, including of guest work-
ers (especially low skilled) whose temporary contracts have expired, i­llegal
immigrants who are apprehended and deported, and refugees who are
repatriated against their will to the countries from which they fled.
When these various kinds of diasporic return are considered, it becomes
evident that diasporas are not simply constituted by migratory d ­ ispersal
across the globe, but also by migratory returns to the original home-
land. In fact, most diasporas are characterized by a tension between such
­centrifugal and centripetal forces (Tsuda 2009b: 11). The prominence of
diasporic return indicates that migration is not simply a unilinear process
that terminates with permanent settlement and eventual assimilation to the
host country (see also Silbereisen et al. 2014: 3; Stefansson 2004: 5; Tsuda
2009b: 7–9). Instead, it is a continuous, ongoing transnational process,
especially for diasporic peoples, which involves not only further migration
to other countries after their initial migratory dispersal from the homeland,
but also migratory returns back to the homeland.

Objectives of the Book

Through a series of case studies, this edited book volume will examine
various types of diasporic returns to the South Korean homeland among
members of the Korean diaspora from a comparative perspective. They
include the return migration of Koreans living abroad as migrant work-
ers, professionals and entrepreneurs, students, or adoptees, as well as the
ethnic return migration of Korean diasporic descendants who have been
born outside their country of ancestral origin. Some of these diasporic
returnees are immigrants who intend to settle long term or permanently
in their ancestral homeland while others visit only temporarily as tour-
ists, students, or professionals or to stay with family members. This book
also compares Korean diasporic return with migratory returns from other
Asian diasporas.
8 T. TSUDA

We adopt an inclusive perspective that encompasses the considerable

diversity of diasporic returns by examining different types of migratory
returnees from various countries in South Korea and other Asian home-
lands. The reasons why they return to their country of natal or ancestral
origin and the homeland government policies that enable their dias-
poric return are also quite varied. In addition, their subsequent ethnic
experiences in their homeland can differ. We therefore refer to diasporic
returns in the plural to stress the multiplicity of these returns.
The three issues this edited volume focuses on are the causes of dias-
poric return migration, the diasporic engagement policies of homeland
governments that make such returns possible, and the ethnic experiences
of diasporic returnees in their homelands. Although the reasons why
diasporic peoples return to the homeland are primarily economic and
instrumental, and less driven by ethnic affinity per se, there is still con-
siderable variation in these motives for return. Some are unskilled labor
migrants seeking higher wages and better economic livelihoods in their
homelands, while others are taking advantage of professional and educa-
tional opportunities in their countries of origin or are simply tourists and
visitors. Homeland governments have implemented different types of
policies to reconnect with their diasporas and encourage them to return
“home.” Some of these policies, especially those of South Korea, favor
certain types of diasporic return migrants over others, resulting in inher-
ent inequities in their immigration and citizenship status. The next two
chapters of this introductory section provide the policy context for this
book by analyzing the different types of diasporic engagement policies of
homeland governments.
There are also significant differences in the actual ethnic experiences
of diasporic returnees in their homelands. Despite being co-ethnics
who are returning to an ethnically familiar country of origin to a certain
extent, their ethnic homecomings are often quite ambivalent and fraught
with tensions and even social alienation from the host population.
However, others have more favorable homeland receptions and experi-
ences, increasing their sense of connection to their ethnicity and ancestry.
There are obviously various reasons why the nature of diasporic
returns can vary considerably. This book focuses on three variables:
the nationality of the migrants, their social class status, and their gen-
erational distance from the homeland. In order to illustrate and analyze
such differences, the case studies in this book consist of a wide range
of Korean diasporic returns. In terms of nationality, we have included
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 9

diasporic return migrants in South Korea from a variety of different

countries. They represent most of the countries with the largest over-
seas ethnic Korean populations, namely China (2,585,993), the U.S.
(2,238,989), Japan (855,725), Uzbekistan (86,186), Russia (166,956),
and Germany (39,047), which is the country with the largest number
of ethnic Koreans in Western and Southern Europe along with the UK
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2015, https://www.mofa.go.kr/
travel/overseascitizen/index.jsp?menu=m_10_40).3
In terms of social class, we have case studies of diasporic return-
ees from less developed countries (namely Korean Chinese and former
Soviet Koreans), who are mainly low-skilled migrant laborers in South
Korea, as well as those from developed countries in the Global North
(mainly Korean Americans and Korean Japanese), who are primar-
ily middle-class, high-skilled professionals, students, or tourists in their
homeland. We also consider diasporic returnees of varying genera-
­
tional status. Unlike Tsuda’s (2009a) earlier comparative volume, which
focused solely on the ethnic return migration of later-generation dias-
poric descendants from various countries, this book also includes the
return migration of first- and 1.5-generation Koreans who have resided
abroad. This is similar to other recent edited books on return migration,
which examine both types of return (see Conway et al. 2009; Vathi and
King 2017). In fact, the generational status of the diasporic returnees
covered in this book ranges from the first to the fourth generation.
One variable that remains relatively uninterrogated in this book is
gender. Although the experiences of female diasporic returnees are cer-
tainly included in this book, we offer no systematic analysis of how dias-
poras themselves are gendered and how the diasporic returns of men
differ from those of women. This is certainly a topic for future research
(see Vathi 2017: 13–14 for some discussion). We also do not consider
age as a variable either, especially because the case studies in this book
are generally about younger or middle-aged return migrants and we
do not consider those who move back to their countries of origin after
retirement (see Sampaio 2017).
Such differences in nationality, social class, and generation (not to
mention gender and age) among diasporic return migrants inevitably
mean that they are positioned differently in their homelands. Since a
number of homelands receive diasporic returnees from multiple coun-
tries, an ethnic hierarchy has emerged, especially among different nation-
alities of ethnic return migrants. This is another theme of this book that
10 T. TSUDA

emerges in some of the case studies. In South Korea, Korean Americans

are positioned at the top of the hierarchy above even Korean Japanese.
Below them are Korean Chinese, who are in turn more privileged than
the former Soviet Koreans. This is partly a product of unequal and dis-
criminatory Korean immigration and citizenship policies toward ethnic
return migrants of different nationalities. However, it is also structured
by social class position, since the inequality between ethnic return
migrants is also based on their relative socioeconomic standing in Korean
society. Finally, generational status also has an impact on this ethnic hier-
archy since those who are closer in terms of generation (and cultural
similarity) to their ancestral homeland are more ethnically privileged and
favored (see the Conclusion for further discussion).
This book also has a final section with comparative case studies of
diasporic return from other Asian diasporas. These include Japanese
descendants from the Americas (Japanese Brazilians and Japanese
Americans) who return migrate to Japan, and Hmong Americans who
imagine visits to multiple, uncertain homelands. As far as we are aware,
this is the only book that examines Asian diasporas of both East Asian
and Southeast Asian origin by comparing Korean diasporic returns to
those in the Japanese and Hmong diasporas.
Most of the chapters for this edited volume are based on in-depth field-
work that draw from extensive interviews and participant observation.
The chapter contributors met during a two-day conference at Ateneo
University in the Philippines in mid-December 2016, where they pre-
sented their chapter drafts for extensive discussion. The two co-editors
reread all the chapter drafts and provided extensive comments for revision
based on the main themes of the book. As a result, we hope that this book
will have greater intellectual cohesion than other edited book volumes.

Chapter Summaries
This current chapter is followed by two other chapters that constitute
the introductory section of this book. Chapter 2 places Korean diasporic
returns in broader comparative perspective and analyses the reasons why
diasporic peoples have returned to their homelands. It first compares the
history of the Korean diaspora and its contemporary returns with other
Asian diasporas represented in this book. This is followed by a compar-
ative analysis of the causes of diasporic return and the diasporic engage-
ment policies of South Korean and other Asian homeland governments
that have enabled the return of their diasporic peoples.
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 11

In Chapter 3, Timothy Lim, Dong-Hoon Seol, and Atsuko Sato

examine the diasporic engagement policies of the South Korean govern-
ment. In recent decades, the government has adopted policies through
the Overseas Koreans Act to actively engage its diasporic communi-
ties abroad for both instrumental (economic) reasons and in response
to both domestic and international/geopolitical pressures. By using a
multi-level and integrated framework, Lim and Seol demonstrate how
diasporic engagement policies are both domestic and foreign poli-
cies that are based on a confluence of factors that included presiden-
tial decision making, competing bureaucratic interests and priorities,
changes in global geopolitics, developmentalist ideologies in an era of
economic globalization, and activism and judicial challenges in the con-
text of international human rights. As a result, an initial policy designed
to exclude Korean Chinese in the diaspora was expanded to eventually
include them, demonstrating the importance of agency among various
stakeholders and decision makers.
Part I contains case studies of ethnic return migration to South Korea.
Chapter 4 by Changzoo Song is about the diasporic return of Korean
Chinese and former Soviet Koreans to South Korea, where they work as
unskilled laborers. The Korean Chinese have been able to maintain the
Korean language and culture in their ethnic communities more than
the Soviet Koreans, who experienced assimilationist pressures under
Stalinism. As a result, an ethnic hierarchy has emerged between the two
groups in Korea since the Korean Chinese are favored by employers and
receive better jobs and even supervise Soviet Korean workers. Although
both groups identified as “Koreans” in China and Russia and maintained
a sense of nostalgic affiliation to their ethnic homeland, they experience
negative and discriminatory treatment from Koreans as cultural foreign-
ers and economically marginalized workers. In response to their ethnic
and social alienation, the Korean Chinese prioritize their “Chinese” iden-
tities and natal homeland over their Korean ethnic homeland and the
Soviet Koreans similarity assert stronger cultural identities as “Russians.”
Both groups do so based on the belief that their natal homeland coun-
tries of China and Russia have many positive features compared to South
Korea.
Ethnic hierarchies among diasporic return migrants are not only based
on their cultural status or their position in the labor market, but citizen-
ship and formal membership as well. Not only has the South Korean
government discriminated between different groups of ethnic return
12 T. TSUDA

migrants in terms of immigration visas, it has also done so in terms of

permanent residency and naturalization policies. In Chapter 5, Nora
Hui-Jung Kim analyzes a large sample of court cases in which Korean
Chinese immigrants challenged the denial by the government of their
permanent residency or citizenship applications. The Korean Chinese
face considerably greater difficulties meeting the requirements for for-
mal membership in the nation-state compared to Korean ethnic return
migrants from North America. Although the Korean Chinese are not
always directly responsible for the problems that cause their applications
to be rejected by the government, the courts often uphold the decisions
of immigration officials. In addition, even those who do successfully
obtain formal citizenship in South Korea do not enjoy the same level of
rights and privileges compared to their North American counterparts and
therefore lack real, substantive citizenship.
Ethnic return migrants in South Korea are not only from develop-
ing countries but also from developed ones such as Japan and the U.S.,
where a significant part of the Korean diaspora resides. Chapter 6 by
Sug-In Kweon, is about Korean Japanese ethnic return migration from
Japan to South Korea. Although ethnic return migrants from developed
countries who are mainly professionals or students in their ancestral
homelands usually enjoy more favorable ethnic homecomings, this is not
always the case for the Korean Japanese. They often experience prejudice
and intolerance in South Korean society because of the negative attitudes
many Koreans have of Japanese, which is the result of the past history of
Japanese colonial oppression as well as continued tensions between the
two countries. As a result, the Korean Japanese can face discrimination,
hostility, and even ridicule in their ancestral homeland, especially because
they are completely assimilated to Japanese culture and are not familiar
with the Korean language or culture. As they become disenchanted with
their Korean homeland and their former identity as “Koreans” is chal-
lenged and problematized, many of them adopt and embrace an alterna-
tive identity as “ethnic Koreans residing in Japan” instead of identifying
in purely nationalist terms.
Part II of the book examines the return migration of first-generation
and 1.5-generation Koreans from the diaspora. Chapter 7 by Christian
Joon Park is about the diversity of mainly 1.5-generation Korean
Americans. He examines the various reasons why they return and the
positive as well negative perceptions of them in South Korea. On the
one hand, they are seen as globalized Koreans who are valuable assets
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 13

for Korean society because of their English abilities and professional

skills and ability to adapt to Korean society. At the same time, there are
some negative images of Korean Americans, which question their moral
standing and their motives for returning to Korea. In response to their
ambivalent experiences and cultural marginalization in Korea, Korean
Americans do not develop counter-identities based on a deterritorial-
ized, nationalist identification with the United States. Instead, they adopt
more fluid, transnational identities as “Korean Americans” who embody
the best of both America and South Korea, or more expansive ethnic
identities as “globalized Koreans.”
Chapter 8 by Kim Park Nelson is about Korean adoptees in the U.S.
who return to their natal homeland of South Korea. Although they are
technically 1.5-generation immigrants in the U.S., because they were
adopted primarily by white families usually when they were infants and
raised in mainstream American society, they have lost their connection to
their ethnic heritage and culture. However, most do not return migrate
in order to reconnect with their Korean ethnic roots or identity and
many do not even seriously search for their Korean families of birth or
acquire much proficiency in the language. Instead, they cite more instru-
mental and mundane reasons for returning to their natal homeland.
Although they are racially invisible in South Korea, they are socially visi-
ble because of their lack of Korean linguistic and cultural ability, making
them feel self-conscious and inadequate. Ultimately, in response to their
discriminatory racial exclusion in the U.S. as Asians and cultural exclu-
sion in Korea as Americans, they develop dual, transnational identities
which reflect how they are in-between both countries.
Chapter 9 by Yonson Ahn examines Korean immigrant nurses who
have settled in Germany and make return visits to South Korea for fam-
ily reunions, as well as relaxation and touristic leisure. They also wish to
escape and heal from the stresses of work and living in a foreign host
society. Although such returns can make them feel reinvigorated and
reconnected to their Korean culture and roots, they also experience a
number of difficulties despite being back in their country of birth. Not
only do they have to fulfill various family obligations that they have
neglected while living abroad, they find that both their families and
Korean society in general have changed during their long absence. Their
homeland now feels strange and foreign to them, especially because
they have become accustomed to living in a different Germany society.
14 T. TSUDA

Therefore, their return visits cause them to feel a dual sense of attach-
ment as well as distance from both their home and host countries.
Part III places Korean diasporic returns in comparative perspective by
examining migratory returns in other Asian diasporas. In Chapter 10,
Erin Chung compares how the co-ethnic immigration policies of South
Korea and Japan, which are part of their diasporic engagement policies,
have created different types of hierarchies. First, there are hierarchies in
the two countries between ethnic return migrants (who receive prefer-
ential visas and rights) and non-co-ethnic migrants. Nonetheless, ethnic
return migrants are hierarchically positioned below native citizens and
excluded from the ethnic nation through discriminatory practices. In
addition, there are hierarchies among different groups of ethnic return
migrants in both countries that are based on their nationality, social class,
and perceived desirability. Whereas such hierarchies have led to the mar-
ginalization of ethnic return migrants in Japan, they have facilitated their
incorporation in Korea through visa policy reforms.
Diasporic returns vary not only from one ethnic return migrant
group to another. There can also be internal differences within the
same group of migrants depending on variables such as social class,
age, ­gender, and generation. In Chapter 11, Takeyuki Tsuda examines
how ­ generational differences among Japanese Americans affect their
ethnic return migration experiences in Japan. Generational distance
­
from the e­ thnic homeland can have a considerable impact on the nature
of ­ diasporic returns, especially for ethnic minorities like the Japanese
Americans, who range from the second to the fourth generation. Tsuda
argues that the amount of ethnic return among Japanese Americans and
their level of homeland immersion in Japan does not naturally decline
across the ­ generations in a unilinear manner because of increasing
­cultural ­assimilation and social incorporation into mainstream American
society. Instead of following such predictable patterns, the level of home-
land engagement among different generations of Japanese Americans
is much more complicated and contingent and also depends on their
­specific historical and contemporary ethnic experiences.
It is important to remember that we should not naturalize returns as
an essential aspect of all diasporas, since there are diasporic peoples who
cannot, or do not wish to return. In Chapter 12, Sangmi Lee examines
the reasons why 1.5- and second-generation Hmong Americans gen-
erally do not return to their ancestral homeland. Because the Hmong
diaspora has a long history of migratory dispersal, their members have
become uncertain of the exact location of their country of ethnic origin
 1 KOREAN DIASPORIC RETURNS 15

over time, making permanent returns impossible to a certain extent.

Since there is no unified and singular ethnic homeland to which they can
definitively return, many of them engage in vague imaginings of various
types of return to multiple destinations of origin. This includes China
(their purported ethnic homeland), Laos (their natal homeland where
they or their parents were born), and/or Thailand (their refugee home-
land where they were placed in camps after the end of the Vietnam War
when they fled Laos). Although most young Hmong Americans have
never been to these countries related to their ethnic origins and his-
tory, they do respond positively to the possibility of a future temporary
“return” visit to these multiple places of origin for various reasons, which
actually do not have much to do with ethnic heritage or roots.
The concluding chapter interrogates the concept of return in spatial,
temporal, and social perspective in order to examine the often ambiva-
lent ethnic homecomings of diasporic return migrants and why they do
not feel like they have truly returned to their homelands. The multiplic-
ity of diasporic returns is then discussed by examining how the variables
of nationality, social class, and generation intersect to hierarchically strat-
ify diasporic returnees in the South Korean and other Asian homelands,
which leads to different ethnic experiences of diasporic return.

Notes
1. This is based on 2015 statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trade in South Korea.
2. This statistic and the others below about Asian diasporic populations are
based on estimates compiled by Wikipedia from various sources about the
diasporic population of each Asian country that resides in various countries
around the world.
3. This data is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s “Current
Status of Overseas Koreans” (2015), https://www.mofa.go.kr/travel/
overseascitizen/index.jsp?menu=m_10_40.

References
Chan, Yuk Wah, and Thi Le Thu Tran. 2011. Recycling Migration and Changing
Nationalisms: The Vietnamese Return Diaspora and Reconstruction of
Vietnamese Nationhood. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37 (7):
1101–1117.
Conway, Dennis, and Robert Potter (eds.). 2009. Return Migration of the Next
Generations: 21st Century Transnational Mobility. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
16 T. TSUDA

Nguyen-Akbar, Mytoan. 2014. The Tensions of Diasporic ‘Return’ Migration:

How Class and Money Create Distance in the Vietnamese Transnational
Family. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 43 (2): 176–201.
Oxfeld, Ellen, and Lynellyn Long. 2004. Introduction: An Ethnography of
Return. In Coming Home? Refugees, Migrants, and Those Who Stayed Behind,
ed. Lynellyn Long and Ellen Oxfeld, 1–15. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
Sampaio, Dora. 2017. ‘Is this Really Where Home Is?’: Experiences of Home
in a Revisited Homeland Among Ageing Azorean Returnees. In Return
Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing: Discourses, Policy-Making and Outcomes
for Migrants and Their Families, ed. Zana Vathi and Russell King, 240–256.
London: Routledge.
Silbereisen, Rainer, Peter Titzmann, and Yossi Shavit. 2014. Introduction:
Migration and Societal Integration: Background and Design of a Large-Scale
Research Endeavor. In The Challenges of Diaspora Migration: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Israel and Germany, ed. Rainer Silbereisen, Peter Titzmann,
and Yossi Shavit, 3–24. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Stefansson, Anders H. 2004. Homecomings to the Future: From Diasporic
Mythographies to Social Projects of Return. In Homecomings: Unsettling
Paths of Return, ed. Fran Markowitz and Anders Stefansson, 2–20. Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books.
Tsuda, Takeyuki. 2009a. Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in
Comparative Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 2009b. Introduction: Diasporic Return and Migration Studies.
In Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative
Perspective, ed. Takeyuki Tsuda, 1–18. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 2009c. Why Does the Diaspora Return Home? The Causes of Ethnic
Return Migration. In Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in
Comparative Perspective, ed. Takeyuki Tsuda, 21–43. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Vathi, Zana. 2017. Introduction: The Interface Between Return Migration and
Psychosocial Wellbeing. In Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing:
Discourses, Policy-Making and Outcomes for Migrants and Their Families,
ed. Zana Vathi and Russell King, 1–18. London: Routledge.
Vathi, Zana, and Russell King (eds.). 2017. Return Migration and Psychosocial
Wellbeing: Discourses, Policy-Making and Outcomes for Migrants and Their
Families. London: Routledge.
Xiang, Biao. 2013. Return and the Reordering of Transnational Mobility in Asia.
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 CHAPTER 2

The Causes of Diasporic Return:

A Comparative Perspective

Takeyuki Tsuda and Changzoo Song

Introduction: Multiple Returns

As mentioned in the previous chapter, this book covers a ­considerable
range of different types of diasporic returns. The causes of these migra-
tory returns and the subsequent socioeconomic status of diasporic
returnees in their homelands are therefore quite varied. Although some
of them are first- or 1.5-generation members of the diaspora who return
to their natal homelands, others are diasporic descendants of the later
generations who are ethnic return migrants in their ancestral, ethnic
homelands. Some of them are in their homelands long term or perma-
nently, whereas others are temporary sojourners, visitors, or circular
migrants. In addition, we not only look at various groups of diasporic
Koreans who have returned to South Korea, but also members of the
Japanese and Hmong diasporas who have returned (or are considering
returns) to their respective Asian homelands.

T. Tsuda (*)
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
C. Song
Asian Studies Department, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

© The Author(s) 2019 17

T. Tsuda and C. Song (eds.), Diasporic Returns to the Ethnic Homeland,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90763-5_2
18 T. TSUDA AND C. SONG

So how do we make sense of this rather bewildering multiplicity and

diversity of returns by various diasporic peoples from numerous coun-
tries who are of different ethnicities and generations and migrate to their
respective natal or ethnic homelands for a variety of reasons?
In an attempt to account for the large range of diasporic returns that
are covered in this book, this chapter places Korean diasporic returns in
comparative, historical perspective. We first compare the Korean dias-
pora, in terms of both its history of diasporic dispersal and contemporary
return with the other East and Southeast Asian diasporas that are repre-
sented in this book, highlighting both similarities and differences. The
various reasons why these diasporic peoples have returned to their home-
lands are then discussed, which is followed by a comparative analysis
of the diasporic engagement policies that homeland governments have
adopted to enable and encourage their dispersed ethnic populations to
“return home.” In the concluding chapter, Tsuda interrogates the con-
cept of return and discusses how the main variables considered in this
book—nationality, social class, and generation—hierarchically position
different groups of diasporic returnees in their homelands and structure
their ethnic experiences of return.

Korean Diasporic Returns in Comparative Historical

Perspective
Since the mid-nineteenth century, increasing numbers of Koreans began
to migrate to Manchuria and the Russian Far East (also known as the
“Maritime Province”). They were poor peasants who suffered from fam-
ine caused by droughts and political turmoil, which plagued the northern
regions of the Korean peninsula in the early 1860s. After Japan’s colo-
nization of Joseon Korea in the early twentieth century, larger numbers
of Koreans (this time, including former soldiers, government officials,
and intellectuals) fled to Manchuria and Russia as well. Meanwhile in the
southern part of the country, indentured laborers began to migrate to
Hawaii with the help of American missionaries in 1903. 7226 Koreans
settled in Hawaii before Japan took over Korea’s diplomatic sovereignty
in 1905 and stopped this migration (Patterson 1988). In the 1920s,
with the post-World War I industrial boom in Japan, tens of thousands
of Koreans went to Japan as unskilled workers. After Japan’s invasion of
Manchuria in 1931 and the consequent establishment of Manchukuo,
large numbers of Koreans were semi-forced to migrate there and their
 2 THE CAUSES OF DIASPORIC RETURN: A COMPARATIVE … 19

number exceeded 2 million in the early 1940s. With the outbreak of the
Pacific War in 1941, Koreans were conscripted by Japanese authorities
both as workers in Japan and also as soldiers of the Japanese Empire. By
the end of the war, there were more than 2.3 million Koreans in Japan,
and the great majority of them returned to their homeland while some
600,000 Koreans remained in Japan.
After the Korean War (1950–1953), large numbers of orphans and
war brides migrated to the U.S. from South Korea. Until 1964, about
6000 war brides and 5000 orphans went to American and the number of
international students from South Korea also reached 6000 during this
period. When the U.S. government changed its immigration law in 1965,
these Koreans invited their family members and since then, the Korean
American community has continued to grow. In 1962, the South Korean
government began to promote international migration both to relieve
population pressure and also to benefit from remittances sent in foreign
currencies from Korean migrants abroad. The government sent Koreans
to Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay as agricultural migrants from the early
1960s. Soon, nurses and miners were sent to West Germany. Between
1964 and 1973, Korean soldiers and workers were also sent to Vietnam
during the Vietnam War, and when the war ended, many of them
migrated to Middle Eastern countries and Australia as workers. Korean
migration to the U.S. and other wealthy Western countries continued
through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The number of Koreans and their
descendants living in America exceeded 1 million by the late 1990s. After
the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988, however, emigration from South
Korea began to slow, and some people began to return to Korea. After
the 1997 Asian financial crisis, however, Korean migration increased again
and many of them went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In gen-
eral, however, South Korea’s increasing economic prosperity in the past
few decades has continued to encourage some Korean migrants abroad to
return to their natal homeland.
Substantial ethnic return migration to South Korea began in the early
1990s. Especially after the China–South Korea diplomatic normaliza-
tion in 1992, tens of thousands of Korean Chinese went to South Korea
in search of employment and higher wages in their now wealthy ethnic
homeland. Though their migration was tightly controlled in the begin-
ning, the South Korean government eased entry visa regulations for
them and today there are over 600,000 Korean Chinese in South Korea.
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