God's New Whiz Kids?: Korean American Evangelicals on Campus

Conclusion

Conclusion A New Theory of Emergent Ethnicity The incorporation of today’s “successful” children of immigrants into U.S. society is captured by neither assimilation nor ethnic retention. Socioeconomic mobility, along with entrance into the clubs and institutions of host society at the primary group level, is not leading to the expected weakening of ethnic ties. Instead of dissolving, it is precisely on the path of assimilation and primary group contact that ethnic “groupness ” becomes strengthened. The ethnicity that emerges from this interaction , however, is not the “old” ethnicity inherited from the first generation . Instead, it is an emergent ethnicity “made in the U.S.A.” We have seen that little is actually retained from the first generation by the second generation in terms of their religious participation. Ethnic values and cultures of the first generation are not what constitute SGKAs’ religious services. SGKAs draw the sharpest boundaries between themselves and the first generation, and their campus ministries are modeled after mainstream campus ministries and look more like them than either the first-generation ethnic church or campus ministries . Furthermore, characteristics that can be deemed uniquely “Korean American” about SGKAs’ religious services are often picked up and adopted by the mainstream campus ministries. In a diverse and competitive religious marketplace, Korean Americans and other Asian Americans are innovating ways of doing campus ministries. All of this, however , does not then mean that SGKAs are “assimilating.” SGKAs’ campus ministries are similar to mainstream campus ministries , and they share much with other native-born ethnic groups. However , given the choice, they will turn to ethnic-specific over pan-ethnic, multiracial, or predominately white campus ministries. SGKAs will congregate with those who are most like themselves—those who are most likely to share similar and familiar experiences of growing up with intergenerational and intercultural conflicts with the first generation Kore142 ans in America. Thus, what draws SGKAs together at the primary group level and qualifies as the “Korean American” experience is constructed in America. The finding that ethnicity is emergent and “made in the U.S.A.” is not new. There is consensus that the “so-called foreign heritage” of immigrants is constructed and reinvented in America (Conzen et al. 1992; Handlin 1951; Sollors 1991). But just how and why ethnicity is reinvented and remains salient for later generations remains open to debate. Having first coined the term “emergent ethnicity,” Yancey et al. (1976) reject assimilationist arguments regarding the temporarily persistent nature of ethnicity as well as pluralist arguments regarding cultural heritages as the basis of ethnic group solidarity. Instead, they argue that ethnicity becomes solidified under the structural conditions of “residential stability and segregation, common occupational positions and dependence on local institutions and services” (Yancey et al. 1976: 399). Emergent ethnicities take shape within the structural parameters that characterize urban working-class life with the residential, occupational, and institutional concentration of ethnic groups. Yancey et al.’s (1976) structural argument regarding the construction of emergent ethnicities is posed as an alternative to assimilation and pluralist theories. Their argument, however, is similar to assimilation theories that view ethnicity as a working-class phenomenon. Assimilation theorists, including segmented assimilation theorists, would agree that ethnic identities and associations will be strong among immigrants who are under the structural conditions that characterize urban working -class life. But they would argue that ethnicity would lose significance once immigrants, particularly the later generations, move outside of the urban ethnic ghetto and gain entrance into the institutions and organizations of the “host society.” While Yancey et al. would not agree with the latter point regarding the decline and disappearance of ethnicity , they likewise do not seriously consider how emergent ethnicities would be constructed beyond the ethnic ghetto, particularly for the later generations. Yancey et al. do not explain just how ethnicity changes for the children of immigrants and what may or may not be retained from past generations. Focusing on the structural conditions that promote ethnic group formation , Yancey et al. (1976) fail to address what draws individuals to form ethnic group identities and associations in the first place. Having rejected explanations regarding the salience of cultural heritages, they Conclusion | 143 do not offer any alternative explanation for why individuals would identify and associate ethnically when given the structural opportunity to do so. In contrast to Yancey et al. (1976) and assimilation theorists, my research shows that ethnic “groupness” can be strengthened and reactively formed beyond the...