The lived experiences of young Korean Canadians indicate their cultural identities should be understood partly as inherited, partly as modified, and partly as invented by negotiating and redefining cultural boundaries in the fact of complex pressures and contradictory belonging. This paper describes the dynamic fluidity and complexity of emergent forms of cultural identities by cross-cultural experiences.

Given the different backgrounds of recent Korean immigrants from the past European immigrants, it is required to understand their different paths and ways of constructing cultural identities. The development of technology and transportation has accelerated easier and faster access, beyond physical boundaries, to the Korean contemporary culture. Recent Korean immigrants avail of more possibilities to retain the Korean culture than ever before. Furthermore, the socio-cultural environment in Canada is getting more multicultural thereby more accommodating of Asian cultures than the last decades. These contemporary characteristics create a shift in the mode and degree of adaptation and integration into the Canadian society different from the traditional model of assimilation.

My study investigates how young Korean Canadians construct, create, and recreate new identities while resisting complete assimilation or the sense of being on the margins of two cultures. The emerging cultural identities are neither the result of simple acculturation nor naive cultural syncretism. Rather, emerging cultural identities should be seen as cross-cultural connections.

This study will serve to create educational programs that facilitate generative possibilities through cross-cultural experiences rather than perpetuate cultural insularity or insensitive assimilation.

---

Keywords

• Cross-cultural identity
• Korean Canadians

(30 min. Conference Paper, English)