Watch out for the black men
From YoKim
"Watch out for the black men": AIDS, politics of accusation, and racially bound female bodies in the Korean American public discourse
May 12, 2005 Medical Anthropology Yongho Kim
In a newspaper discussion student group meeting during the spring of 2002, a Swedish sophomore student claimed confidently (without giving much preceding or following commentary) that "in the United States, African-Americans have the highest AIDS infection rate". Upon the indignant reaction of some present, she added: "this is a fact, I read it in X [news source]" as if we were challenging the certainty of such claim.
Stigmatizing diseases such as HIV/AIDS are often used, either covertly or unknowingly, as a accusatory tool, in which those pointed carry the full weight of such accusations. 1 Rather than trying to analyze the factors that affect HIV/AIDS transmission across populatoin groups, medical reports aim to beat it down to single groups, which seem to be identified by only single approaches in the gender, race and class triad.
In this paper, I argue that Korean American women's bodies constitute a contested site of nationalistic cultural identification by Korean American and Korean men, and that because of this contention, public discourse in the Korean American community turns to HIV/AIDS and its authoritative, racialized and medicalized language to sexually bind their bodies within the confines of their own community. For the lack of proper research, this paper does not show extensive ethnographic evidence and merely portrays the theoretical aspects of this argument.
Nation as the Body
The stability of the nation is a constant source of worry for the ruling classes. In particular, the institutions of family and its epicenter, the woman's body, becomes in the dominant discourse, a parameter of how strongly integrated, or morally deficient, or sucessful, the nation is. 2 In the case of colonial relationships, metropolitan citizens establish the knowledge, and economic resources, as well as the women in the colony as targets which need be efficiently administered by the central administration. 3 The special circumstance of women in the movements can be considered as that of colonial subjects in their own land, as maybe that of a Colonialism of a Special Type 4
In the context of the modern state, the nation is compelled to imagine itself as bound together by naturalizing, or pseudoscientific terms to prevent the secessionist sentiments which would decrease the influence of metrpolitan power holders. This imagination puts the women in the class of social reproducers of the nation - in their very own biological reproduction and creation of children who carry on the next generation of laborers, women sustain the nation. Women are imagined as sustaining the nation also in the ideological ground, because they are the primary educators of the recent born. Thus there is an interest on behalf of those in power to control the women, because in them rests the control of the nation as a natural, and not social, entity.
This nation of laborers coerced into a naturalized contract (the idea of a nationwide family or filial network) is continually reimagined and reincorporated into the everyday discourse through the speech on bodies. Nazi Germany, for instance, promoted the image of a healthy, muscular arian male worker, because that way it could control those who did not quite identify with the image but who nonetheless strove to reach it by turning themselves into more efficient machinery of the state.
Similarly, in the United States, the predominant body used to assert the nation's authority on its inhabitants, is the upper-class, white male citizen. (citizen of birth, that is) 5 The necessity to abide by the regulating constraints of working efficiency, impartiality, proper entonation and pronunciation of the english language, desired attitudes towards food, sex and drugs, is pampered everyday through the media and the public discourse. Those who refuse to be enclosed in this umbrella of woven definitions bring upon themselves an INS raid, demonizing from the medical establishment, police violence, and so forth.
Racing AIDS
In February of 2005, the Centers for Disease Control published a special issue on HIV/AIDS among the black population in the United States and focused on a case study from black women in North Carolina. The report presented basic socioeconomic facts and argued that black women were in danger due to their unsafe practices in terms of their sexual practices (both primary infection prevention and control of partners), making the point that the black women were being further endangered by their male (purportedly black) partners. 6 The report, however, did not portray the scene in its larger political economy, whereby structures of white supremacy had been exerting its influence on the living standards, health care availability, community trust on the state for a long period of time. Although it made the gesture of recognizing economic unstability as a factor, not the driving force, of the community's pain at the end of itself, this report was commented in given black communities as short-sighted.
The CDC operates in its own political environment, where decrying exploitation for the peculiar institution of slavery, which "ended" centuries ago, is seen as oversensitive and not recognizing the responsibilities that the HIV/AIDS positive patient should have as such. Heavily focusing on aspects which are often beyond the scope of field Health Care Workers can diminish its policy or practice impact in the field, and fail to contribute to bettering the situation at the site.
This report, whilte a subtle political maneuver, is an excellent study of dominant and subaltern readings of a text. Read subalternly, the this texts conveys the view of structural violence, wherein the neglect of health institutions and larger economic policy decisions made by legislators, rather than the active malpractice of those affected, weight more heavily in the outcome described. At the same time, the text can be read dominantly, understanding that it is "the helpless black man who cannot do anything but neglect the use of condoms" and viewing the women as ignorant victims who only need to be enlightened by the liberal white conquistador. The important feature, is that the latter dominates public discourses, and constantly permeates through any subaltern understanding of the conflict. 7 Given how states operate using soft power when they are not threatened by their external or internal enemies, this tactic is likely to continue.
My focus here, however, is the representation and perception of said blackness in the Korean American community, particularly in the ethnic newspapers and online news sites that cater to the population in New York City.
Korean Nation and the Immigrant Community
The modern korean nation is an ideological construct initiated by the needs of the illegitimate governments of presidents Syng-man Lee (1948) and Chung-hee Park (1962) and kept in place to serve the needs of subsequent states. The main characteristics break down as
1. Racial nationalism, through the lineage and phenotypical features, which are often symbolized in the emotionally charged words of blood and lineage talbe or jokbo. 2. Cultural nationalism, which refers to the ability to speak the korean language as well as a the shared acceptance of a series of moral codes, mostly confucian-derived. 3. Spiritual emphasis of the han (한) which is described as a deep sense of sorrow that is enmeshed with happiness. 8 4. Loyalty to the state, which is imagined as the representative of the nation as pointed out in the numbers above. 5. Territorial, who claims rights over the land in the korean peninsula by birthright.
These requirements support each other, creating a core of racio-cultural ideals for koreanness. This aspect is embedded into the everyday korean speech, which makes a stark distinction between those who belong and those who do not belong in the korean nation - for instance, the nation of korea is not spoken of as "korea" but rather as literally "our country".
When these ideals are endangered by individuals who remain in the periphery but come to the national attention for other factors, the nation (often described by the press as "guk-min", or the national peoples) reacts with severe backslash. To this date, when korean adoptees from the U.S. or Europe visit South Korea, and are unable to reproduce the traits above specified, Koreans respond with a mix of scorn and hate. 9 Partialy, this responds to the semi-colonial economic relationship that is prevalent between the Third and First Worlds. Belonging to the latter, Koreans identify in the adoptee's inability to represent koreanness fully a vestige of white, first class, cultural citizenry; and react with hostility to the parody that the adoptee represents given that she or he can at least partially represent the expected behavior (in terms of race, language, and possibly loyalty to the state)
These reactions are stronger when the peripheral individual is not racially korean, but Southeast Asian or Black, for example. South Korea is a regional economic power in East Asia, and given the development of Structural Adjustment programs in ASEAN nations throughout the primary resource-extraction based economy southeastern asian nations, the number of immigrants flowing into South Korea and Japan increase every year. Mortifying confrontations between southeast asian migrant workers and the Immigrations and Citizenry Bureau, and the workers with the korean low-wage workers, have occured, reminiscent of 19th century Irish immigrant, and later Eastern European immigrant influx into the United States in the east coast.
A major attack hurled against those within peninsular Korea who side with the migrant workers, grab on the fact that these support groups are female-dominated. The groups are accused as being desperate women trying to have sex with their own exoticized version of southeast asian migrant workers, and insulted on nationalistic basis, because they are make the nation's blood dirty, and the children therein borne will neither belong to their fathers' nor their mother's nations. (according to South Korean natoinalistic interpretations, that is).
Indeed, sexual fantasizing, around the penis size and other sexual attributes, of the male colonialists towards the dominated population were prevalent also in the british colonies of Cape Town and the American colonies. 10 After appropriating of the women sexually, white men in the colonies would decry the demoralization that goes along with a interracial sex inclination. This parallels to the boom of government-sponsored sex tourism from Japan and South Korea to southeastern asian nations as their purchasing power arises, but when nationalist defenders hear these observations, they take a more puritan posture and argue that all interracial relationships should be forbidden, much in the same way that separatists took lead in northeastern states in the earlier days of the slavery and miscegenation controversy. 11
Korean immigration to the United States, on the other hand, which gradually forms the korean american population that this paper discusses, has seen three stages of development - the earliest wave being immigrant populations moving to the States under korean government sponsorship during the 50's, which constitute a postfeudal elite, and then the massive exports of educated college graduate engineers and scientists, plus political exiles, during the Park regime in the 70's; and finally, the movement of cheap labor and the working class in general after the structural adjustment programs implemented during the 80s and 90s.
In the case of New York, of particular interest is the boom of nail saloons led by korean and vietnamese immigrants of comparatively lower english skills and who constitute the second and thrd wave of immigrants. 12 Their financial profitability is considerable, and contrasts the growth of korean owner-operated supermarkets in the West Coast and in particular the Los Angeles area. The nature of nail caring, for social normative as well as practical reasons, precludes men from participating in the production of this specific form of bodily labor, making the woman an emerging source of income in the post-industrial metropolis.
Gendered Nation
Thus in this respect, and particular in New York City, korean immigrant women become the site of national production, not only from a symbolic/ideological perspective but also in the immediate concerns of everyday income producing labor. Were men to lose control of this labor, the notion of a patriarchal, male income-centered society is endangered.
To a large extent, koreans tend to marry among themselves, partially because of the sense of nationa as explained above, but also because immigrant communities maintain very tight networks to ensure economic survival. Even when first generation korean immigrants may stay in the United States for dozen years, their sense of belonging to the peninsula is strengthened by the continuous flow of newsapapers with ideologies about race and nation imbued on their language. The different political economy of exploitation and national defense in the peninsular newspapers and those found in the everyday living situation in the U.S. creates a distinctive cosmovision in those engage in these informal immigrant networks.
Many wealthy second generation korean americans travel to the peninsula to marry, because they worry korean immigrant women in the United States have become "corrupt" and "not pure enough", as an "authentic" korean woman is imagined. 13 For those who cannot afford to do so, or who do not have high markettability, there is a high tension to retain korean women in the immigrant community. Especially for labor-intensive fields such as manufacturing and the textile industries, the proportion of male to female tilts towards the men. Thus when korean women start dating, or expressing interest in the colonial fantasies created and circulated mostly by men, men express outrage.
First, there is the fear that the korean women will make their blood impure by marrying non-koreans, as well as a passing concern for the "bastard" offspring. But more importantly, the concern is that the community might gradually lose its income generating muscle.
Many strategies are used to keep women within the korean community. In his paper, I argue that the representation of blackness as "filthy", "diseased" and "probably infected with HIV/ADIS" is one such strategy to keep women at least from dating or engaging in sexual intercourse prior to marriage with African-American men.
Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that korean american immigrant women are forced to stay in their communities by having a propaganda of sexualized, diseased images of black males (or any darker skin tone, for that matter) through public discourse such as the print media, as well as private conversations at the family and friend's circles level. Further research is needed to actually uncover significant ethnographic evidence of this intution and theoretical approach.
Bibliography Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, HIV Transmission Among Black Women - North Carolina, 54(4), CDC, February, 2005, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5404a2.htm Farmer, Paul, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, University of California Press, 1992, http://tinyurl.com/97uzw Frederickson, George M., White Supremacy: a Comparative Study in American and South African History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981 Guy, Donna, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1991 Hall, Stuart, Encoding/Decoding, in Stuart Hall (ed.), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979, 1980 Johnsen, Sunny, The Creation and Rise of KAD as a Separate Identity and Nation, December, 2002, http://geocities.com/kadnation/kadnation.html Kang, Miliann, The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean Immigrant-Owned Nail Salons., in 17 Gender and Society, 820-39 (2003), http://tinyurl.com/8vwaf Kim, Ilsoo, New Urban Immigrants: The Korean Community in New York, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1981 Lee, Gyutae. (이규태), Essays on the Study of Koreanness: the cross-sections of tradition and everyday life (한국학 에세이: 전통과 생활의 접목), 신원문화사 (Shin-won Cultural Publishing), Seoul, South Korea, 1995 Maree, Gerhard, Race Thinking and Thinking about Race in Contemporary South Africa, in () Sheller, Mimi, Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies, Routledge, 2003
Notes
1. See Farmer, Paul, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, University of California Press, 1992, http://tinyurl.com/97uzw 2. See Guy, Donna, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1991 3. See Sheller, Mimi, Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies, Routledge, 2003 4. See Maree, Gerhard, Race Thinking and Thinking about Race in Contemporary South Africa, in () 5. See Weiss 2001? 6. See Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, HIV Transmission Among Black Women - North Carolina, 54(4), CDC, February, 2005, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5404a2.htm 7. See Hall, Stuart, Encoding/Decoding, in Stuart Hall (ed.), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979, 1980 8. See Lee, Gyutae. (이규태), Essays on the Study of Koreanness: the cross-sections of tradition and everyday life (한국학 에세이: 전통과 생활의 접목), 신원문화사 (Shin-won Cultural Publishing), Seoul, South Korea, 1995 9. See Johnsen, Sunny, The Creation and Rise of KAD as a Separate Identity and Nation, December, 2002, http://geocities.com/kadnation/kadnation.html 10. See Frederickson, George M., White Supremacy: a Comparative Study in American and South African History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981, p.100-03 11. See Frederickson 1981?, p.105 12. See Kang, Miliann, The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean Immigrant-Owned Nail Salons., in 17 Gender and Society, 820-39 (2003), http://tinyurl.com/8vwaf 13. See Kim, Ilsoo, New Urban Immigrants: The Korean Community in New York, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1981, p.147-78
