Negotiating hybridity: transnational reconstruction of migrant subjectivity in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Transnationalism has emerged as a key factor in altering immigrant ethnic enclaves by networking them with global flows of capital and labor. A quintessential example is Koreatown in Los Angeles, often portrayed as the 'overseas Korean capital.' The area has experienced rapid transition since the mid-1990s that is related to a huge influx of South Korean transnational investment and, concomitantly, migrants of various backgrounds. This study investigates the resulting transformation of the built environment, residential composition, and social relations in Koreatown. Of particular interest are the ways in which Korean and other transnational migrants flexibly alter their identities in terms of the situations in which they exist. Semi-structured and informal interviews with key informants were conducted, focusing on autobiographic narrations related to the discursive structure of their identities. Information from mainstream and Korean-American newspapers and previous academic work also are central to interpreting the qualitative data. We argue that, in contrast to the common view, Los Angeles's Koreatown is a highly multicultural, heterogeneous space. Therefore, it is suggested that this area should be reconsidered as a hybrid, rather than homogeneous, space where intra- and interethnic identities are flexibly reproduced, contested, and combined in the course of localized global interactions.

Keywords: Los Angeles Koreatown; transnationalism; multiculturalism; undocumented workers; flexible identities; hybrid space

Introduction

Los Angeles's Koreatown (subsequently referred to in this paper as simply Koreatown) is well known as the largest Korean community outside of Korea, an iconic space representing Koreanness and, accordingly, a unique part of US multiculturalism. However, the space is frequently seen as a fixed representation of Koreanness, creating an oversimplified geographical fabrication that tends to disregard internal diversity. This imagery also serves to neglect the area's hybrid position in between the Korean and the American.

The 2000 US Census showed that Koreans in Koreatown accounted for only 20% of its resident population, whereas Latinos comprised more than 60%, most of whom worked for Korean-American businesses. Such data contrast highly with an urban landscape that is predominantly filled with Korean business signs. Further, even within the categories of Korean Americans and Latinos, various ethnic sub-identities have been culturally and politically produced, contested, and flexibly reshaped.

It might seem obvious that contemporary migrant profiles are never permanent and that their identities are constantly in transition. Indeed, the so-called transmigrants (Basch et al. 1994) are beyond conventional national categories, such as 'melting pot' and 'salad bowl.' Complex socio-spatial relations across national boundaries culturally affect lives and identities. In this regard, concepts such as segmented integration (Heisler 2000), transmigration (Glick Schiller et al. 1992), and translocalities (Appadurai 1996) increasingly accentuate transnational complexities. An increasing number of present-day migrants believe that they flexibly belong to both the home and host countries. In addition, some argue they are footloose cosmopolitan citizens, belonging to no conventional territory. How, then, can we better understand the transnational process reshaping Koreatown, which is so often seen simply as a Korean ethnic enclave? How do American multiculturalism and South Korean transnationalism interplay to make Koreatown re-territorialized and re-ethnicized?

This paper considers identity not to be a fixed position but a process in itself. We strive to deconstruct the term 'transnational identity' and explore how such identities are variously produced, contested, and negotiated. Los Angeles Koreatown is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, the area is undergoing dramatic change, largely influenced by a sizable influx of transnational Korean capital and labor, which reshapes its conventional ethnic and cultural geography. Second, Los Angeles Koreatown more strongly experiences internal socio-cultural stratification, thus challenging conventional views of it as a homogenous ethnic enclave. Korean Americans in Koreatown, for example, are fragmented into wealthy transnational investors, small-business owners who comprise first generation Korean Americans, generation 1.5, and second generation Korean-American professionals, and poor transnational guest workers from South Korea. But Koreatown also houses a sizable number of Latinos and Muslims.