In this work I seek to explore Korean culture within Argentina, ethnographically and discursively. The questions I pose are the following: How do Argentines feel about Koreans in Argentina? What type of relationship do Argentines of Korean descent engage in with Korea and Argentina? How has the mainstream media facilitated or aggravated these relationships?
Migrating South: A Historical Contextualization
“When I first came out of Argentina to Europe, the flight took 36 hours. Now it takes 12 hours, and the world is still shrinking.” – Juan Manuel Fangio3
“They come here with money,” said Luis Rosatti. He spoke with what can be perceived as a faint admiration, coupled with a profound disdain, when describing the wave of Korean immigrants into Buenos Aires. The Rosatti family business, for three generations has been textile-based.4 According to Luis, “los Coreanos” (the Koreans) came to Argentina and took over the textile market. The only previous textile competitors came from the Jewish community, however, in a matter of years, Koreans began to manufacture women’s clothing, and own factories. Slowly, and strategically, they became more successful than a majority of the working-class Argentineans (Rossatti 2007). Argentina’s popular national identity is based on an exclusive (European) racial representation, in addition to a rigid class stratification system; so Koreans inevitably stirred resentment towards their presence.
Argentine national identity deserves a brief historical assessment, in order to expound its relationship to racial discrimination and immigration. This helps explain past and present national attitudes about race. Argentina was conceived in the following manner: the founding fathers imagined a “white” nation, and thus, pursued violently the elimination of ethnic minority populations (non-whites), while simultaneously encouraging European (white) migration to el Sur (the South.) The“legal” and “moral” precepts of this national foundation, still resonate within the contemporary formation of class and citizenship. Racism is Argentina’s original sin and undibutably, it colors the lens by which “non whites” and for the purpose of this work, Koreans, are seen.5
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In the 1950s, Korea was entering a definitive historical moment; war. One of the natural byproducts of conflict is displacement and by extension, voluntary and forced migration. This action impacts society in both sending and receiving territories. The transformative nature of these experiences problemitizes notions of identity, nationality and culture, and their impossible compromise. With the creation of a newly partitioned South Korea, came decades later, a mass exodus of the recently formed citizenry throughout the world, including to Spanish-speaking Latin America (Miller 1993).The Korean Diaspora to Argentina distinguishes itself in that South Koreans migrated with a respectable amount of purchasing power, which distinguished them from other Asian immigrants of the time. 6A high population in South Korea made it impossible to develop national economic and social agendas.
By 1965, the South Korean government propagated migration as a solution policy. They awarded a monetary sum of approximately $40,000 per family, and this funded the reestablishment of South Koreans outside of the borders of their nation-state (Min 1991. Promoting a “group migration” project from 1970-1978, South Korean families were sent to rural areas throughout Argentina. It is important to emphasize, that this international migration debunks the 1970s historical-structural approach to understanding this phenomena. Migration was promoted not as a means to mobilize cheap labor, but because physical space was lacking in South Korea, and simply, they were too many people.7
However, this South Korea-Argentina migration project did not succeed in establishing families within rural areas, because most of the participants lacked agricultural experience, despite this being one of the requisites of eligibility for inclusion into the program. Also, South Koreans did not wish to relocate to underdeveloped areas that lacked basic socioeconomic infrastructures and opportunities. Many of these migrants were children of South Korea’s industrialization, which created a huge wage-labor work force. Following their arrival to rural Argentina, South Koreans mobilized to urban centers and cities, aggressively seeking entrepreneurial ventures (Mera 1997).
The Acto de Procedimiento was signed in 1985 in the City of Buenos Aires as a reactionary legislation that exponentially fueled the South Korean migration to Argentina. It reached its height between the years of 1985 to 1989. 8 At this time, no longer were immigrants leaving behind a geographically and economically underdeveloped country. South Korea was now modern and industrialized, but suffering from economic stagnation (crisis), complicated by overpopulation and lack of space.
The new wave of South Koreans immigrants, were able to benefit from an existing Argentine-Korean community, with established social networks rooted in the textile and food market economies (Bhabha 1998). Migration systems theory deserves a brief discussion, when analyzing these processes. It affirms that, “migratory movements generally arise from the existence of prior links between sending and receiving countries based on colonization, political influence, trade, investment or cultural ties” (Miller 1993:26). The Korean-American war forged political influence and established trade relationships between the US and Korea, but also, it created the desire for South Koreans to head North by way of the South. Argentina was the surest path, for establishing roots in the United States because of the Argentine-US relations of that time. So while many South Koreans settled in Argentina, a huge sector of these migrants had as a geographic objective, the US and Canada.
Carolina Mera accentuates in her work on the establishment of the South Korean collectivity, that 1990 saw a “qualitative growth and a quantitative decline” between the South Korean collectivity and Argentine society (Mera 1997). After the 1990s, the wave of South Korean immigration to Argentina was contained to isolated family reunifications. The substantive shift is tied to the Argentine construction of the Korean identity, by way of the media. As a result of the subsequent increased hostility towards them, many Koreans decided to return to their original plans, of heading north feeling a national rejection.9 Integration became impossible for the Korean community. They were alluded to and presented as intruders who should, “go home.”
Ethnic Capitalism and Foreign Work Ethics: Textiles and Groceries
Korean immigrants have a strong tendency to regroup abroad because of an augmented ethnic identification, due to a perceived national or racial rejection. Such transnational regroupings provide community (enclaves), cultural preservation (of values and customs) and economic relations (that lend and invest.) Sociologists Glazer and Moynihan (1975) and Bell (1975) studied and proposed that ethnic identification is vital to fortify group solidarity, which in turn is imperative to confront market advantages or increased access to resources. Ethnic identification can be deemed “strategic” when discussing migration and economic development, as seen in the Korean/Argentina case.
I recall my first graduate course in economics where the professor attempted to explain ethnic capitalism; which is the term for what I have detailed with Korean regroupings. He said, “Koreans don’t have an extraordinary ability to do nails or own delis.” This illustration evoked the proliferation of Korean delis and nail salons in New York City; which up until that moment, had been overlooked on my part. 10I will revise this example and apply it to the Korean textile and grocery industry in Argentina, in my evaluation of ethnic capitalism. Surely Koreans are not ethnically advantaged when working with textiles or groceries. Or are they?
Luan Cao in The Diaspora of Ethnic Economies, Beyond the Pale? discuses the typical model of Korean ethnic capitalism, constant regardless of where employed. He posits:
Assume that a small Korean-owned cleaning business relies on word of mouth to find suitable employees in order to save on advertising and other search costs. This Korean-owned business may be located in a Korean ethnic enclave of Korean restaurants, groceries, laundries, wig stores, and other Korean-owned shops… As a small business, many of the company's employees are members of the owner's family. As part of the Korean ethnic economy, the cleaning business can also find, at low or no cost, Korean employees if the owner needs to hire from outside his or her own inner circle….The owner may also prefer to hire other Koreans, or engage in lending and other preferences favoring other Koreans, because of shared language, culture, kinship, community, or a sense of mutual trust. An ethnically homogenous work force thus is created. An ethnic economy thus is reinforced and perpetuated (Cao 2003: 2).
This practice of Korean ethnic capitalism, had been ongoing for years before suddenly gaining momentum and challenging the formerly Argentine dominated textile markets. The Rosatti’s remember their first Korean encounter within their textile buisness at Once.11
Pablo Kim immigrated to Argentina as a teenager. His family dedicated themselves to building up the “Kim Textile Dynasty,” buying boat loads of textiles from Korea, at competitive prices. The rest of his family imported textiles, while Pablo pursued manufacturing clothes. One of the Rosatti sons, Daniel, owns a clothing cutting company (cortadores.) The two met through a mutual buisness associate, that recommended Pablo to Daniel stating,“he is a decent guy.” This compatriot nod was an unspoken requirement ,when engaging in buisness with the Korean community. Driving up to Daniel’s buisness in a new Honda Accord, was suffice to get him noticed. Pablo Kim placed an enormous costly order, and agreed to have the check picked up upon completion of the work.
Pablo Rosatti was excited to meet the renowned Pablo Kim. Pablo, the name, is as common as Diego in Argentina. However, he had never heard of a Pablo Kim. “Kim must be as common as Lopez in Korea.” He thought this because they were so many Kim-named buisnesses that were sprouting throughout Once. “I first noticed that all of the girls that worked in his factory were local, except the one who worked behind the caja.12 She was Korean.” She asked, “Who are you looking for?”
“Pablo.”
“And your name?”
“Pablo….but my name, really is Pablo” (Rossatti 2007).
During my visit, this anecdote was repeated numerous times and always ended in the same roar of laughs and applauses. Pablo Rosatti had reversed the economic power dichotomy through ethnic claims to national authenticity.
“They work long hours and expect everyone to do so too.” This was the general description of Koreans and a basis, as to why Argentines did not like to work with and for them. It would be erronious to presume that Korean immigrants in Argentina, do not subjugate themselves to the demands they require of their employees. In fact, the Korean work ethic accounts in part for their economic prosperity; even if it also can be the origin of the brutal image that was later difused through he media regarding their labor practices.
South Korean work ethics and labor practices have a substantial amount of scholarly literature available, which sheds light on their attitudes towards work and workers. It is a documented fact that South Koreans work extremely long hours, and only until a recent 2007 national legislation, has the issue of work days and hours become legally regulated and monitored. However, during the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the waves of South Korean migration to Argentina, the average Korean wage-worker had a minimum 54 hour work week. At the time, Koo states that factory life in South Korea was grueling, “Korean factory life was a constant series of violations of this basic demand to be treated as free, self-respecting human beings” (Koo 2001: 62). Conditions within the factories were deemed “inhumane.” The more terrible the conditions, the greater the production. 13 Korean factory owners mistreated workers, but saw it as an effective means of increasing production, and by default, profits. The oppression of the “manual worker,” comes from a cultural value system, that has contemptuous attitudes towards blue-collar (manual labor.)14 Those who migrated to Argentina never saw the rights-based approached improvements that recent legislation brought about. The fact is that South Koreans understand economic prosperity, in a way that does not consider human rights.
To anchor and visualize the conditions in which Korean factory workers were sunject, I will share an excerpt from a South Korean factory worker’s diary:
Boss, please our work is too hard. It’s cold in our workplace. The machine is running too fast and I’m afraid of getting hurt. Please treat us like human beings rather than always trying to watch over us…I’d like to have some sleep…It’s too dusty…Dark murky blood comes out of my throat. My arms ache so painfully as if they are being cut off from my body. The smell of poisonous gas gives me a headache. My feet are swollen. I can’t endure anymore. I’d like to rest…(Kim Syong-sook et al. 1986: 1983-1984).
The reason that Korean factory workers endured such hardships, was not because of their commitment to the company; which differs greatly from Robert Cole’s assertion on Japanese work ethic, but more because of the desire to improve their economic conditions for their families. South Korean work ethics and labor practices, are family oriented.Familial prosperity is also tied to the (Confucious) committment to care for the ‘family.’ All of these historical legacies and work ethics, undoubtedly migrated to Argentina . It would be fascinating to read a page from a Bolivian factory worker’s diary, and compare how they feel working under a Korean-owned factory in Argentina, with the previously cited excerpt. But, such a comparison would be worthy of a separate study.
“I left South Korea because I wanted more for my children,” said Matias Kim. Matias owns a factory in the Once district and has two sons and a daughter: Diego, Martin and Veronica. The Kim family buisness is textile-based, they manufacture women’s clothing and Diego, the oldest son, owns a grocery store in the Province of Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires. “When we left South Korea, my wife and I had some money, some friends and family in Buenos Aires and a lot of plans. First, we wanted our children to have an University education. Then we wanted to be able to have our own buisness, we had been treated too long as workers. Argentina would allow us to be more than workers.” I could hear a slight accent in Matia’s diction, however, he also spoke English. He said he learned English in South Korea, and thought about migrating to the United States when the discrimination against Koreans was amplified in the 1990s.15 However, he worked too hard in Argentina, and was too tired to go through the process of reestablishing his family and their interests, up North. In our conversations, he continually reminded me that the Kim family worked long hours too.
“You see, in Argentina, everyone wants to have holidays, everyday. If there’s a football game, they want to leave early, if they’re giving “Son de Fieros”, then, they have to go. My family likes football and TV, but we work.” 16 The contesting (cultural) approaches to work, made evident what hindered full integration on their part. Matias shared, “when I got here, Argentines treated me as if they admired me. Now, they treat me, as if me and my family, should not be here. They often say, go back to Korea, but, everything I have is here. They just don’t want to see us, though, they know they need us” (Kim 2007). Is the Korean approach to work, a cultural misunderstanding that seperates these two communities? I do not believe that Argentines base their rejection of Koreans on the reports of the Korean exploitation of undocumented Bolivians.Argentines have treated Peruvians and Bolivians in equally deplorable ways, when exploying them. 17 So is it an issue of race or culture-clash that repels these two communities?
Popular Visibility: Exploiters not Industrious, Koreans not Chinos
“Being Asian, every Asian person in the world expects you to represent them.”-Rick Yune
By the 1980s, the considerable flows of migrants from South Korea to el Sur made it impossible to ignore their presence. Argentina’s relative economic success (lived mainly during the Dollarization era) saw diverse immigrant communities’ form from peripheral countries such as Bolivia and Paraguay, to as far East as Japan and China. Since Koreans came with money, they immediately did things that most working-class Argentines could not. Such as, purchasing a home and starting a buisness. Working-class life in Argentina is a rental-based, waged-labor type of existence. And so, the immediate acquisition of capital (homes and buisnesses), was initially deemed admirable; because most immigrants and working-class Argentines alike, cannot fulfill this dream. However, South Korean economic mobility, came with hightened suspicion.
In the 1990s, Koreans were identified as firmly prosperous. At this time, the Argentine working-class standards of living began to decline. Reacting, they were discontent and such foreshadowed the looming economic crisis. First generation Argentines of Korean descent owned buisnesses, attended and graduated Universities, drove cars, and owned homes. While the Argentine working-class began to reconsider their economic opportunities, within the current political administration. Under these diametrically oppossed conditions, developing within the same country, Korean visibility was negotiated.
Clarin, the national (centrist) newspaper, was the first to nationally recognize the Korean community’s economic prosperity. However, in the same pages of their paper, were forced to chart the working-class disgruntlement that was brewing because of national economic decline. Many Argentines questioned how could immigrants prosper in a foreign land, “why were they doing better than us?” (Rossatti 2007).A series of reports drastically changed the positive portrayal that Koreans had gained. More than a decade later, Argentines vividly recall the reports which exposed the abuse of Bolivian workers by Korean factory and grocery stores owners (C. Sims 1995). Exasperating tensions, Clarin, additionally reported that these Korean buisnesses were stealing light from the state. This point is important, because it made Argentine society feel as if they were directly impacted by Korean actions. They too were robbed.
The reports went on to accuse Koreans of deplorable work practices, and of being cunning and exploitative of ‘vulnerable hard-working immigrants.’ Argentines replied by castigating and repremanding Korean visibility. The story did not position this reported case as isolated, but more so, was complicit in narrating this episode as part of a larger national story of infraction and theft. All Koreans were in some way guilty, because of this story. The government then upheld the hightened fear and exonophebia. In fact, Nell states:
Politicians have used rising crime rates in the Metropolitan Buenos Aires area to fuel xenophobia and to argue for further restrictions on immigrants. They blame immigrants for the rise in crime, despite the government’s own statistics demonstrating that immigrants were not responsible for the majority of crimes. News reports on the proposed legislation referred to foreign workers as an ‘invasion’ and also blamed them for lower wages and high unemployment… (D. Bell 2001).
All of sudden, it became clear as to why Koreans were able to prosper! They prospered because they were exploiters, or so this was the Argentine reasoning, resultant from these reports that mediated this revelation. I don’t wish to debate the vericity of these newsreports, instead I seek to pose the possibility; that the media constructed the Korean image in relation to their own economic anxiety ,during an opportune national moment.
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I will caveat the beginning of this section by stating that I won’t attribute the misidentification of Koreans as Chinos (Chinese) as an exclusive Argentine reflex. I recognize that cross-cultural generalizations tend to be manifested in popular discourse, and all cultures, in some way, are guilty of this. To differentiate linguistic and aesthetic particularities, requires an effort. However, what I will accentuate, with respects to the Argentine case is that, Argentines are very much cognizant that Koreans are not Chinese. When speaking of Koreans within the public Argentine sphere, more than often, the ethnic differentiation is pronounced. Luisito Rosatti (Luis’s oldest son) shared, “those Koreans are not like the other chinos, some of them are very much Argentine.” He said this at a restaurant, where he could feasibly run into one of the Coreano merchants he worked with (for.) Interestingly and conversely, on our way home, he then advised me to not visit Flores (a textile business/factory district within the City of Buenos Aires) where “most of the chinos worked.”He said this because of the insecurity that plagued the area. This comment forced me to reflect on the deliberate performative use of words (J.L Austin 1962).
After years of a prominent and growing Korean presence, such a misnomer is a conscious effort to delegitimize cultural visibility within the private sphere, where individuals exercise linguistic agency. The recognition of a Korean national/cultural singularity amongst Asians, within Argentina, validates a contested presence. In the same light, grouping Koreans in a broad classification, such as Chinos, casts them as “other,” and obfuscates their economic prosperity. The intentional and interchangeable use of terms to culturally reference and ethnically brand is a direct consequence of the relationship between Korean migration and Argentine national identity.
The first popular representation and interpretation of a Korean in Argentina appeared in the 1988 sketch-comedy show, titled “Juana y sus Hermanas” (Juana and Her Sisters.) This is the first memorable Korean depiction by Argentine television (J.E Rosatti 2007). In a 2004 interview with Alec Hanley Bemis, Juana Molina, who played the infamous Coreana, discussed the initial stages of her artistic career in Argentina, with respects to this show. Affirming that the characters she portrayed were based on real-life, she states, “It was real, which is why it became so successful. My family has that thing: we all make fun of everybody and each other to see how mean we can be.” The professed authenticity in the personification of her characters is questionable.
La Coreana was played as a greedy, submissive and inarticulate worker, only able to say an exaggerated “yes” in Spanish. “Aaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.” The fact that her only decipherable words were of an affirming acquiescence, positions this nameless character as submissive and inferior within the popular consumption of identity. This character predates the 1990s news reports that served to confirm, that la Coreana was in fact like the “exploitative” Koreans. The Korean work-ethic had already been considered within the Argentine collective viewpoint, and so was preemptively exhibited in la Coreana’s shrewd and underhanded managing of a grocery store.
“La Coreana” dressed (always in red) and expressed the conditions under which the Korean community became mediated within the national public sphere. It is worth noting that her aesthetic representation and linguistic exposition was inflated, but indicative of how this community was perceived. This Korean caricature also compelled Argentines to recognize racial diversification. Though they were amongst Koreans, they had never “seen” them.
Figure 1 Juana Molina as “La Coreana" in Juana y Sus Hermanas
This exaggerated representation, created a highly-consumed distortion of a Korean, who by default represented an entire immigrant community. At this point in time, the construction of a Korean identity began taking place by means of the Argentine media. Connolly speaks to this process of reification:
An identity is established in relation to a series of differences that have become socially recognized. These differences are essential to its being. If they did not coexist as differences, it could not exist in its distinctiveness and solidity. Entrenched in this indispensible relation to a second set of tendencies, themes in need of exploration, to conceal established identities into fixed norms, thought and lived as if their structures express the true order of things. When these pressures prevail, the maintenance of one identity (or field of identities) involves the conversion of some differences into otherness, into evil, or one of a numerous surrogates. Identity requires in order to be and it coverts differences into otherness in order to secure its own-certainty (Connolly 2002: 64).
If we identify the media, as a social institution in Argentina, it helps explicate the relationship between popular culture and racism. Further, through Connolly’s assertion, it is clear that the Korean dramatization was an indication of Argentine racial prejudices and fears linked to a new visible (and powerful) ethnic identity. In Argentina, la Coreana embodied the “shrewd Korean identity” which still haunts their collectivity (Bemis 2004).
La Coreana was also an attempt to sustain social structures which ensured Korean institutional exclusion within Argentina. In this case, through a comedic undertaking, Korean “racialization” began. Insightfully, Miller suggests that, “Migration can change demographic, economic and social structures, and bring a new cultural diversity, which often brings into question national identity” (Miller 1993). The perceived economic encroachment, that Korean ethnic capitalism facilitated, began to be framed as a “natural consequence” of a Korean presence (especially within the textile and food market sectors.) And accordingly, national fears and rejection of Korean visibility was transmitted onto maintstream televsion, and problemized by preexisting racial presumptions.
Asado with Kimchee: Acculturation and Contestation
Argentine youth within the City of Buenos Aires, of Korean descent, use the identification “Porteño” to refer to themselves. They embrace a local identification, devoid of a blatant ethnic or national classification. Which for Koreans, this is redolent of a native Korean identification system. South Korea is one of the few countries where ethnicity and nationality coincide; sharply contrasting Argentina, where ethnicity strongly influences notions of recognized nationality. Thus, a claim to a local identity, like Porteño, is symptomatic of an acculturation process, most evident in youth culture. Birth-right in Argentina does not grant a legitimate claim, amongst Argentines, to national identification and recognition within social and political life.
Channel surfing in Buenos Aires, I ran across a popular TV show, Utilísima.18 I stopped on this particular channel, not because I have any affinity towards art and crafts, but because after six weeks in Argentina, I finally saw a Korean on Argentine television. The segment I watched was of an Argentine cooking host, making sushi. 19The show’s host introduced “Maria,” and prefaced her introduction with, “Maria is Korean and born in Argentina.” Maria shared the same accent and birthplace of the host, nonetheless, the host felt entitled to distinguish herself from Maria. She did so by affirming Maria was Korean, and not Argentine. I wondered how different the introduction would have been if Maria had identified herself as Porteña or if the host had. What cultural shift and claim would this have implied? But alas, such did not happen.
Mercedes Rosatti is the matriarch of the Rosatti clan. Her textile experience predates the family’s presence in Buenos Aires, and goes back to Cordoba. “The Koreans girls I know say they won’t ever go back to Korea because they can put on fake tits in Argentina” (Rossatti 2007). This comment provoked my thoughts on gendered control over the body in relation to migration. But, minimizing this, I will highlight that most Korean girls, which Merecedes spoke of and who have had aesthetic work done, are probably within the age range of 18-25. This would indicate, in accordance to the historical waves of migration, that these (Korean)girls have spent all, or most of their lives in Argentina. The idea that they can potentially return to South Korea, indicates that they are not viewed as having a legitimate claim to Argentine space.
Interestlintly I question, how can a Korean integration be achieved, if even rural Argentines are still dienfranchized within the workings of Buenos Aires life? Mercedes often shared that she is called by her Buenos Aires neighbors, “la Cordobeza,” an identification which outs her as “not from Buenos Aires.” There is so much class and racial division within Argentine society as a whole, that inclusion of darker and poor Argentines (cabezitas) remains unachieved. So, can Koreans, who are ethnically different, but economically advantaged, integrate? Can they demand visibility? What conditions need to be in place for this to happen? Is it enough to speak with a sshh20 or be a devottee of Boca21?
Veronica Kim (15) was born in Argentina and only identifies birthplace to other Koreans. She feels obliged to excuse the spanish accent, detectible in her Korean. About to graduate High School , she wants to study in the United States. However, because Argentina is no longer dollarized, she does not know if this is a possibility. Her cousins, who live in Queens, New York tell her that New York City is more ‘open’ than Buenos Aires. “But I don’t know if I can deal with Gringos, I hear it isn’t easy for Latinos in New York.” I sat in the small resturant in Recoleta, located a short walk from Once and a long strech from Once’s reality.22 Veronica was unusually skinny. However, she claims it isn’t the TV or anything like that. Argentina suffers from the second highest annorexia rate in the world, after Japan (Hearn 2005). She giggled when I mentioned this and said, “it helps I am asian, I don’t need to starve.”
I wanted to know how Veronica felt about living in Argentina and if she ever thought about going to South Korea. Adolesence is a difficult time, no matter where you experience it. I can only imagine how difficult it may be in Argentina, as the ‘Asian other.’ “I have a lot of friends that are not Korean, however, I don’t visit them in their houses. I don’t like the way their parents talk to me.” She continued, “I am going to marry a Korean, I don’t care where he is from- Korea or Argentina, but this is important to me…and more than anything, it is important to my father.” Veronica confessed she had a boyfriend who was not Korean, but she knew that their relationship would lead nowhere. “I think he just likes saying that he dates me because I am Korean.” Apparently, Korean women are highly fetisicized by Argentine males, though, neither would admit this in public (V. Kim 2007).
Matias Rosatti lives in Lomas de Zamora, Province of Buenos Aires. However, his family works in Once and Flores, two Korean enclaves of the City of Buenos Aires. I invited him to lunch, and sat at the same café where just days before, I sat with Veronica. Matias is not the typical Argentine youth, he is very much interested in traveling to Jamaica and is religiously pursuing Rastafarism. I knew of the strong regaaee culture within Argentina (Pericos, Los Cafres), but I had yet to meet someone so dedicated to the customs. 23I could not refrain from giggling when he shared he was a vegetarian. In Argentina?!
I wanted learn what he thought of Koreans, considering he alleged an attraction for the women. “The girls I like, are not really Korean,like from there, they’re Argentine. They’re born here, like me. The only thing is that their parents came from Korea, like mine came from Cordoba.” Interested in knowing how he came to this realization of equality, he said, “I know my family does not see things like me, but, I think its because they’re bitter they lost buisness to the Koreans. We had to close down our family’s factories in Cordoba and come here, to Buenos Aires. No one wanted to, but we needed to” (M. Rosatti 2007).
Migration therefore, touched the Rosattis, in a way, that could be compared to the Kim experience. Veronica and Matias both acknowledged the value of family, and the affecting effect migration has on it. Usually no one wakes up and thinks, let me leave everything I know, and start all over in the unknown. Necessity (social, political, economic) drives migration. However, while the unknown can be promising, it can also be bleak. Thus family and community, are, “crucial” (Miller 1993). They are the networks that negotiate the promises of migration, while also upholding traditional values. Meaning, family places you in the new, while upholding the old. Where could I find evidence of reconciliation and integration between these two distinct and yet, coexiting cultures? How much of a role does the family institution/network play in the integration and identification process? The match-maker in me, wanted to set Matias and Veronica on a date, and proceed with my research questions from there.
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“Those Koreans eat Asado,” joked Luis, as he prepared the grill. Asado is Argentina’s famous grilled steak cuisine. It is a Sunday staple. The Kims and Rosattis eat Asados on Sundays. However, it is their side-dishes that differ. The Rosattis will have a green salad or french fries while the Kims have Kimchi with rice. This is an insightful presentation of acculturation. Food does feed our ethnic stereotypes, but it is also serves as a geographic and cultural testament to tradition.
Mercedes was constantly concerned with her grandson’s confession of liking Korean girls. Matias Rosatti (18), Juan Emilio’s son, has no desire to remain in the textile-industry. Wearing dreadlocks, a vegetarian, and pursuing the study of alternative medicine, he embodies the familial and societal changes occuring in present-day Argentina. At the dinner table, he said “I think they’re beautiful.” He was refering to the Korean girls that worked at Once. Mercedes, confused and concerned, shouted, “but they eat that food that smells!” Needless to say , food can be a cause for discrimination, not because of the ingredients, but more because of the cultural community it marks (Garine 2001). Its consumption also tends to be a communal ritual, whose participating members are exclusive. Who you sit with at the dinner table, usually coincides with who you surround yourself with.The Asado and kimchee, replicate Argentine/Korean belonging (acculturation) and at the same time, delineation (contestation.) Side by side, they symbolize the complexities of the past and present, tradition and modenity, East and West and more importantly, the politics of “them” and “us.” When I asked the Kims and Rosattis to describe each other’s traditional culture, it was summed with,“they are, what we are not.” Is this true?
Migrating North: Reconciling with the Hyphen (Korean-Argentine)
The Washington Times released the findings of a “global attitudes” survey from the Pew Research Center, which stated, “In today’s rapidly changing world, people from nation’s rich and poor worry about losing their traditional culture” (Harper 2007). But, migration, in addition to presenting an opportunity to assert a new cultural identity, simultaneioulsy manifests the imprint of previous cultural practices. The immigrant, by definition, is from “here” and “there;” the migration experience robs them of a “static, closed and homogeous identity” (Miller 1993:7).However, what happens when migration becomes the process that reimagines, repositions and responds to national identity? In the case of Koreans in Argentina, migration forced both Argentines and Koreans to question their respective nationality.
The dictatorships of the 1970s propelled an intellectual migration of middle-class Argentines to Europe and the United States. During this same time, Korean migration to Argentina was on the rise. With the economic crisis of the late 1990s, convoluted by the government’s failed dolarization program and soon to expire visa agreement with the United States and Europe; a new wave of Argentine migration commenced with the new millenium. In a coversation with Ernesto Seman, communications director at the NYC Argentine consulate, he said, “these immigrants are not the ones that left to go and study at New School. They are not blond hair and blue eyes.” His statement eluded to the new Argentine migration of the cabezitas.24
South Beach, Florida is known as the “Other Argentina” (Maldonado-Salcedo 2004). The new Argentine diaspora mirrors the processes which produced them. Many, come from Cordoba and Buenos Aires, and were able to enter the United States prior to the reistition of the Visa requirement. Because the Cabezitas lived the initial stages of the recession, significantly earlier than the middle-class, they profetically felt the first gusts of the impending economic crisis. Therefore they left Argentina becoming a visual indicator of what was to follow. Because they were economically and socially disenfranchized within Argentina, their visibility outside of their national borders, questioned the legitimacy of the homogenious and prosperious national identity Argentina was committed on exporting. Cabezitas established themselves within the tourist industry of hotels and restuarants of South Beach and function within the undocumented realm of US life, as they seek the means of adjusting their status. Cabezitas therefore made Argentines, “Latinos” within the United States.
Kuka Rosatti (55) lives in South Beach, Florida. She migrated in 2001, hoping to enough gain capital to finish building her house in Argentina. She often talks about the textile factories and buisnesses her family owned back home. Armed with this memory, she works hard, undertaking 12 hour shifts, six and sometimes seven times a week. Talking about her real-estate mission, she shared a proud moment.One day, she was waiting tables and heard Argentine talking. She turned around and saw he was Korean. She approached him and asked him questions. Because she works in Miami’s downtown, a more pan-Latino community, she gets excited when she is able to speak to one of her compatriots. He was a graphic designer, living in Miami. “It felt so nice to see one of ours doing well here.” One of ours?
Young Korean-Argentines also migrated out of Argentina post-the eonomic crisis and many settled in Miami. The United States, though not the prototypical melting pot it professes, is significantly more multicultural than Argentina. And so, being Korean or Argentine does not raise eyebrows. However, being Korean and Argentine, may. The Koreans that migrated North had many more advantages than the Cabezitas. They were trilingual and had completed their studies (Koo 2001.)As oppossed to their conpatriots, who were barely hanging on to their working-class status back home. Migration offered ethnically different Argentines the opportunity to reconcile with their nationality.Many of the Korean-Argentine immigrants were able to find jobs outside of the Miami tourist industry, because they had managerial experiences (working in their family buiesnesses),studies and marketable competitive kills. While, Cabezitas are forced to work with their hands. The identification with each other, abroad, is important. Migration North made South Koreans, Argentine.
Korean-Argentines abroad participate and congregate at Argentine festivals and concerts, and celebrate soccer games, in a way that is not still possible within Argentina. Before being American, both are Argentine. Cabezitas and Korean-Argentines, up North, are immigrants. The classification, because of the current adminsitration is derrogatory and criminal. This shared sense of “other” is what reconciles the hyphen within Korean-Argentine. I think a great example of this is seen in the incorporation of the film “Don’t U Cry 4 Me Argentina” within the Miami film Festival. This film represented Argentina, though 80% of it is spoken in Korean.
The acceptance that Korean-Argentines have gained internationally is quite remarkable, when considering how fractioned they are back home. In a NY1 2007 report for Asian American Heritage Week, I watched a Korean New Yorker, wearing a soccer Jersey, speaking of Asian identity. She discussed her traditions and family history. My husband, a Cabezita, yelled, “Look she is from Argentina!” Recognizing the colors of the Boca soccer team, he identifed a conpatriots.The report later confirmed his ID.Argentines of non-Korean descent wish to feel that their community abroad is able to distinguish themselves from other Latino immigrants. Similar to how Koreans were able to do so with within the Asian migration to Argentina. Korean-Argentines and Cabezitas abroad are metaphorically integrating.
CONCLUSION:
My exploration of Korean culture within Argentina has left me with hope and questions. My questions are related to how second generations Argentines will define themselves. Will their be cross-cultural marriages, giving birth to the embodiment of the two cultures? Will this force Argentina to rethink their exploitative perception of Koreans? Will Koreans no longer see themselves as living within their own cultural orb? Will migration (to and from) Argentina change popular national discourse of each other, and create a vernacular that is more inclusive of diversity? Will the media act responsibly and deconstruct the derrogratory images of ethnic others?
These questions will only be answered with time. However, I am glad to begin thinking about these processes as they relate to the migration experience and the performance of nationalism. Globalization has long been responsible for the shrinking of time and space. Hopefully, it will also shrink the distance between the Argentine and Korean community in Argentina, and perpetuate (through the media) the reconciled Argentine-Korean identity which is forming abroad.
***
I sat around the table with the Rosattis and the Kims, celebrating my last days in Argentina. I thanked them for their help in putting together this work. As we raised our glasses of wine, I did not know what to toast for. Me? Them? Academia? And in unison, Matias and Luis, the two patriarchs of the families, said, “To Argentina!” Salud!
1 South Koreans sent their children to Argentine schools began to learn Spanish and also participated in cultural activities, in an effort to integrate.
2 Making Koreans the foreign image of exploitation transferred the resentment Argentines felt with respects to their own national labor issues and plights. It provided a much needed distance, particularly after the protests and strikes that were ongoing throughout the country.
3 Juan Manuel Fangio (1911-1995) or as he was known, “el maestro” (the master), was a race car driver from Argentina who excelled in Formula One racing.
4 The Rosatti’s owned factories and clothing stores, however, were forced to sell them and work independently and illegally. They autonomously operate stands within the clothing weekend flea-markets in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires.
5 In Christian belief, Adam and Eve committed the original sin in the Garden of Eden, and all their descendent later inherited that sin. (Chasteen 2001)
6 The South Korean migration of the 1950s was predominantly agricultural, and thus, the Korean farmers en route to the South, settled in countries like Brazil and Uruguay, who had a greater demand for agricultural labor than Argentina. But by 1962, the formalization of immigration out of South Korea was due to lack of space.
7 In an effort to give a numerical assessment of the South Korean problem with respects to overpopulation and lack of development space, figures estimate that there are 41 million people in a 100.000 kilometers squared area.
8 English Translation “Act of Proceedings.”
9 South Koreans heading north were able to do this, because of the already established ethnic networks in places like New York City and Los Angeles.
10 This example of “ethnic capitalism” was stated by Professor David Gold, who teaches in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at New School University during the Fall of 2004.
11 Once, is the textile business area in the City of Buenos Aires. It has become a Korean enclave, in competition with the Jewish businesses, which accuse their neighbors of “taking over.”
12 Caja, in English, would be the equivalent to a cash box.
13 This information is relative to Argentina, considering that migrants pursued factory-oriented ventures (textiles)
14 The large discrimination against manual labor in Korean culture comes from the use of slaves to perform many forms of non-agrarian physical labor in pre-modern Korea and in part due to the absence of a well-established craft tradition, which values manual labor, and secures respect within working-class. (Koo)
15 Koreans in Argentina do not entertain returning to South Korea because the reason most left was due to the lack of space, which continues to present a problem. Also, many have no familial ties left there. Because travel to Asia from Argentina is so expensive, they do not vacation there either. Their migration was one with no return.
16 Son de Fiero is a popular television telenovela on Tele Fe.
17 During the summer of 2003 I was placed in an internship at the Buenos Aires Public Advocate’s office, and saw many cases filed, accusing Argentine business owners of exploitation and inhumane working conditions.
18 Utilisima means “very useful.” This channel is devoted to arts and crafts.
19 I will refrain from discussing the issue of sushi being presented as Korean cuisine, though it merits a critical examination.
20 The shhhh is a reference to the Buenos Aires accent, which is quite distinct and a linguistic/geographic marker.
21 Boca is a one of the popular (working-class) Argentine soccer teams of the City of Buenos Aires. To be an Hincha is to be a devotee of this particular group.
22 Recoleta is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Buenos Aires; it is a cultural/artistic hub.
23 Pericos and Cafres are two popular international Argentine reggae bands.
24 Cabezitas is a Spanish reference to ‘black heads.’ When the country started going through an economic downfall, Argentines who were from the interior of the country (who were darker and not blonde) began to migrate to Buenos Aires in search of jobs. The Argentine rock band ‘Bersuit’ makes a reference to this in their son, “La Argentinidad al Palo” where the song lists all of the diverse and contradicting attributes of Argentine identity. However, it is worth noting that in this highly explicit and immediate song, a Korean/Asian evocation is absent.
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