Mediating the boundaries

Literature review

Media provide many of the discourses into which individuals articulate their identities (Hall, 2003). For second-generation Asian Pacific Americans (APA), they construct their identities within a media environment that largely marginalizes them into a system of racial hierarchy (for examples of APA images in popular culture, see Espiritu, 2004; Hagedorn, 2000; Kang, 2002; Larson, 2006; Lee, 1999; Locke, 2003, Marchetti, 1993; Oehling, 1980; Parrenas Shimuzu, 2007; Shim, 1998; Sun, 2003). The discourses that APAs are situated within construct their identities through and in response to dominant, marginalizing discourses, which in turn situate APAs’ reading positions and uses of media. Though researchers have demonstrated that ethnic and racial identity is a social location from which audiences’ readings are structured (Ang, 1990; Inniss and Feagin, 2002; Jhally and Lewis, 1992; Liebes and Katz, 1986; Squires, 2002), there is little focus on the Asian diaspora beyond the first generation. Further, there has been little theorizing on intra-ethnic interpretive communities, although Means Coleman (2000) has rightly pointed out that there is a range in reading positions within an ethnic group that is structured though not determined by ethnic identity. This study builds on previous work with its focus on the ways second-generation KAs use transnational media to structure intra-ethnic differences. This is a small step in balancing the current emphasis on reception practices to examinations of media use.

A key feature of the second-generation APA experience is a process of ethnic identity formation that is motivated by the realization that their visible racialized distinction precludes them from being able to choose whether to identify ethnically or not (Kibria, 2002; Tuan, 1998). Because of racialization, ethnicity acquires racialized meanings, and strategies of non-identification become limited (Kibria, 2002; Phinney, 1990; Song, 2003; Tuan, 1998). In response to racialization, some APAs actively appropriate racial classifications with self-defined meanings (Espiritu, 1992; Kibria, 2002). However, even a growing appropriation of racial identity by APAs does not overshadow the importance of ethnic identity (Kibria, 2002). This is because ethnic identity acts as a defense against the perceptions and racial categorization of others (Gillespie, 1995; Song, 2003; Tuan, 1998) and because racial identification may have little political or cultural meaning for individuals that have specific ethnic interests (Kibria, 2002). In a pluralistic society, ethnic identity for racialized ethnic minorities is situated in the space between self-definition and dominant cultural definitions (Espiritu, 1992; Nagel, 1994). As Woodward (1997) has noted, identities are constructed within relations of power.

To be clear, ethnic identity is not a stable construct. Ethnic group members actively negotiate a limited set of cultural markers to establish boundaries of ethnic membership in a struggle to define ethnic authenticity (Barth, 1969; Blom, 1969; Smith, 1991), and because markers are defined by the ethnic group, membership implies a basic identity and the claim to judge others and to be judged according to the standards deemed relevant to the group’s ethnic identity (Barth, 1969). To preserve boundaries, APAs often engage in exclusionary discourses about ethnic purity that can restrict personal choice (Song, 2003). Typically, discourses about ethnic authenticity emphasize essentialism and a duty to apply ethnic norms in order to really be ‘Korean’ or ‘Chinese’ (Appiah and Gutmann, 1996). A question this raises is whether second-generation KAs rely on transnational media as a source from which they construct discourses about ethnic authenticity and through which they construct boundaries of ethnic membership.

To better understand ethnic identity formation among second-generation KAs, I draw interdisciplinarily from developmental psychological literature on ethnic identity formation. Psychologists, starting with Erikson (1968), theorized youth identity as a time of malleability and change, and researchers such as Marcia (1966) and Cross (1978) have extended Erikson’s work to examine racial identity formation during adolescence. But, perhaps, the most widely known model of ethnic identity formation is Phinney’s (1996) three-stage model of ambivalence, immersion, and achieved ethnic identity. In the initial stage of this model, individuals uncritically accept values and attitudes about their ethnic group that they see in their social environment – positive or negative. In the immersion stage, individuals immerse themselves in their ethnic culture as they become aware of racial discrimination and form largely favorable evaluations of their ethnic heritage. The final stage is achieved ethnic identity. In this stage, ethnic minority members develop a positive but realistic view of their ethnic group and open themselves to other groups, including the dominant group.

None of the research mentioned, however, is specific to the APA experience. To theorize APA ethnic identity formation, Tse (1999) developed a multiple-stage model. Tse theorizes ethnic identity formation as starting with a lack of awareness and an internalization of dominant White values and norms. Realizing that full participation in dominant society is not possible, Asian Americans enter ethnic emergence, which is most similar to other theorists’ ethnic exploration or immersion stages. While this motivates interest in and an embrace of their ethnic community, they realize full integration within their ethnic community is also impossible, leading APAs to the final stage, ethnic identity incorporation, in which APAs negotiate a bicultural identity as both Asian and American. Understanding these models of ethnic identity formation is helpful in understanding intra-ethnic differences in media use, although it should be made clear that this project does not view ‘stages’ in the same normative terms that psychologists do but rather views the ‘stages’ as categories of different ethnic social locations around which scholars have found patterned differences, which will be referred herewith as ‘identity positions.’ Understanding intra-ethnic difference builds on other scholarship that tends to view the ‘structured complex of social collectivities’ (Morley, 1980: 16) as inter-group rather than intra-group interpretive communities. In this research, the two approaches to APA ethnic identity inform each other to broaden understanding of the ways ethnic identity shapes second-generation KAs’ use of transnational media.

To better understand transnational media use, I draw on Morley’s (1980) conclusion that television (and other media) are used by audiences for the purposes of structuring social roles. Though his foundational study was centered on family and social class, the core finding is relevant across social groups. Similarly, Croteau and Hoynes (2003) point out that social locations also matter in the ways we use and experience media. For racially marginalized diasporic audiences, their social locations are additionally complicated. Espiritu (2002) writes, for example, that second-generation members of the Vietnamese diaspora in the US inhabit multiple and sometimes contradictory identities, noting the ways their ethnic identities are symbolically connected to their parents’ home culture but the ways their ethnic identities are also rooted in their everyday cultural experiences as racialized ethnic others. As her research implies, intergenerational reasons for ethnic identification are not the same, and, thus, media use and reasons for use also differ.

For the first generation, using transnational media is a way of performing a daily ritual of transnational, temporal connection (Georgiou, 2001; Lee, 2004; Matsagnis et al., 2011; Shi, 2009), of bringing the mundane and comfortable rhythms and images of ‘home’ into a world that is unfamiliar (Robins and Aksoy, 2007), and of developing ties to an imagined community (Shi, 2005). Imagined community also gets situated in actual community as ethnicity is negotiated in the public sphere. As Georgiou (2001) found, Greek Cypriots in London congregate with co-ethnics in a local community center to view transnational media together, and by drawing on their shared mediated experiences and their shared experience as ethnic others, they articulate what it means to be a Greek Cypriot in England. Lee and Cho (2003) also found that first-generation KA women discuss transnational Korean ‘dramas’ (scripted television) to strategically construct gender solidarity and to challenge household patriarchy by drawing on ethnically legitimated symbolic resources (Lee and Cho, 2003).

For the second generation, watching transnational media does not supplant watching dominant media but rather supplements dominant media viewing (Georgiou, 2006; Hargreaves and Mahdjoub, 1997; Mayer, 2003b; Sinardet and Mortelmans, 2006). Instead, racialized ethnics turn to transnational media to understand or express ethnic identity. Croucher et al. (2010) found that increased ethnic identification for second-generation French and British Muslim youth leads to increased use of transnational ethnic media. This is because ethnic minority youth use transnational media to construct their ethnic identities (Sinardet and Mortelmans, 2006). Use of transnational media also reinforces cultural connection and ethnic identification. Hargreaves and Mahdjoub (1997) write that second-generation French Muslim youth report that they feel greater affinity to their parents’ homeland through watching satellite television, although it has no impact on their use of French media. In the US, work on Latina/o Americans’ use of telenovelas demonstrates that viewing telenovelas is used for cultural maintenance (Barrerra and Bielby, 2001; Mayer, 2003a; Rios, 2003) and to create transnational cultural bonds with Latin America that legitimate their ethnic experiences and identities in the face of dominant cultural marginalization (Barrera and Bielby, 2001; Mayer, 2003b).

Though many of the studies, particularly in the US, argue for transnational connection, this article takes the perspective that it is not transnational cultural connection but rather the localization of the transnational which is important in forming hybrid identities – identities that are situated in the local and that draw upon the transnational for symbolic ethnic meaning. To understand this more fully, I draw upon Hall’s (1996) notion of ‘new ethnicities’ that he theorizes occur as diasporic youth construct separate identities situated in their local experience as racialized others while drawing on transnationally received ethnic symbols and meanings articulated along the boundaries of cultural difference. In the only study of second-generation APAs found, Durham (2004) conducted focus groups with South Asian American girls, using ‘new ethnicities’ as her primary framework and found that her participants make oppositional readings of both Indian and American popular cultures to assert a new identity position that is negotiated at the interstices of these identity positions. Gillespie (1995), who also draws on ‘new ethnicities,’ writes that transnational media use promotes comparisons between domestic and transnational media, aiding in the construction of new ethnicities that symbolically draw upon their ethnic cultures to counter dominant norms while rejecting cultural politics of tradition that are associated with their parents’ generation. He writes, ‘Media are being used by productive consumers to maintain and strengthen boundaries, but also to create new, shared spaces in which syncretic cultural forms, such as “new ethnicities,” can emerge’ (Gillespie, 1995: 208). Like Gillespie, Mayer (2003b) also points to the role of co-ethnic peers in constructing social boundaries, finding that second-generation Mexican American girls construct social hierarchies and allegiances through shared tastes, negotiating what counts as ‘cool.’

Methods

In order to uncover a more complete understanding of the ways second-generation KAs use transnational media, I employ a multiple method design, integrating media diaries, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic observation to ‘triangulate’ patterns in the data (Fortner and Christians, 2003; Kvale, 1996). Participants were instructed to watch three of five popular Korean DVDs in a familiar, comfortable setting and to write in a media diary after each viewing to stimulate their thinking and to facilitate discussions about Korean media use broadly. In an attempt to make the process as comfortable for participants as possible, I visited and interviewed them in their homes, allowing for limited ethnographic observation. During the interviews, which lasted on average 75 minutes, I asked questions about their reception of the films, about ethnic identification, and about media use. Throughout and after data collection, I used a grounded theory approach to allow theory to emerge from data (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998).

To find participants, I recruited Korean American high school students from two large metropolitan areas in the southern United States. Because the ethnic church is the central organizing site of the Korean American community (Hurh, 1998; Kitano and Daniels, 1995), I recruited through churches and relied on a snowball sampling technique to find more participants. Altogether, I interviewed 33 participants, 16 from Dallas and 17 from Atlanta. Of the 33, there are 18 boys and 15 girls ² between the ages 15 and 18; all participants have been assigned pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality. For the DVDs, I chose popular films with a rating of no more than ‘15 and over’ (similar to the US rating of PG-13), including The Way Home, My Sassy Girl, My Tutor Friend, My Little Bride, and He Was Cool (US titles). ³ The reason DVDs were chosen as the format to watch the movies is because DVDs allow viewers to use subtitles, which are not available on videotape and much less available online. Further, online viewing would require that I direct students to websites that have illegally uploaded the movies as there is not wide distribution on legal online distribution services.

Categorization criteria for ethnic identity positions

Before discussing the findings, it is useful to discuss the criteria used to identify ethnic identity positions. It is also important to note that though there are prototypical distinctions, there is also ambiguity between identity positions. However, the distinctions are important to identify in order to not lose the richness of the concept, and the noteworthy differences and similarities revealed. ⁴ For a full description of the criteria for the stages, see Table 1.

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Table 1.

Brief descriptions of ethnic identity positions.

Identity position	Description
Ambivalence	Participants are disinterested in their ethnic identity. This is occasionally accompanied by hostility toward aspects of one’s ethnic group and culture. Ambivalence does not preclude ethnic activities. Individuals in this identity position sometimes have co-ethnic friends as a result of attending an ethnic Korean church. What is important to note is choice. The reason they engage in ethnic behaviors is primarily motivated by parental choices rather than their own. Living in a society where Whites are advantaged and in neighborhoods that are predominantly White, individuals’ norms, values, and beliefs unproblematically reflect their participation in White US society, and their primary identification is ‘American.’
Exploration	Participants actively seek ethnic understanding and inclusion. They are unfamiliar with ethnic culture and seek more knowledge and experience with it through co-ethnic friends, parents, and media. Unlike the research on ethnic identity formation, they do not state that they are motivated by awareness of racism. Instead, the primary criterion for inclusion was a lack of familiarity that was marked by curiosity, interest, and ethnic choices.
Immersion	Participants engage as much as possible in ethnic behaviors, including the use of transnational entertainment media, choice of friends, attendance of an ethnic church, and engaging in other cultural practices such as their dining choices and their choice of entertainment. Participants often express a desire to live in Korea for a few years, identify primarily as Korean, and prefer their ethnic identity to a US identity, which is generally understood as middle-class White American.
Integration	Participants view themselves as both culturally Korean and American and have a dual cultural identity. Participants identify and disidentify with aspects of both cultures that they do not like, realizing they cannot nor do they want full participation in their ethnic community or the dominant White community. Individuals in this identity position have a clearly marked and well-articulated bicultural identity.

Inter-ethnic boundaries

Unlike US media, which is used by everyone in this study, only some Korean Americans watch transnational Korean media regularly. Using transnational media requires an active choice because it is not readily available and because use of Korean media is discouraged by White peers, implicitly and explicitly. Despite or, perhaps, because of these barriers, second-generation Korean American teens, particularly in the immersion and integration identity positions, search and engage in Korean media to reinforce their own ethnic identity and to reinforce the boundaries of their ethnic group. Participants in the study with the exception of a few in the integration identity position are reluctant and sometimes defensive about sharing Korean media with non-Koreans. Even when their friends, particularly Chinese American friends, show interest and excitement about Korean media, they hide or gloss over their use of Korean media because of two reasons: a past history of rejection from their non-Korean peers and the belief that they have a special right to possess and hold on to Korean popular culture.

Several participants mentioned that when they were younger, they shared or talked about their excitement about Korean media with their non-Korean friends and experienced subtle rejection over their ethnic interests. Richard, who is in the exploration identity position, has mostly White friends and says that though his friends are not intentionally trying to reject his ethnic interests, they do so by showing no interest when he talks about Korean stars. In response to whether he would share the movies he watched in this study with them, he replied:

I wouldn’t recommend those movies only because I don’t think they’d be interested, actually. I could throw the idea out there, but with previous experiences that I’ve had with like if I share like, not movies, but if I share something that I think they won’t like, they won’t, so I don’t really bother.

Because of his friends’ disinterest in a part of his identity that he finds salient and increasingly important, he avoids and hides this part of his identity to avoid the hurt and embarrassment of rejection.

Embarrassment is best evidenced in my interview with Lucy, who is in the integration identity position. I asked her why she does not watch Korean media with her White friends, and she replied:

Because they [White friends] don’t watch it. It’s not like they would understand what I’m saying, and if they’re [Korean entertainers] doing something stupid, and I imitate it, I’m going to look stupid. If they don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll just look really retarded.

In this statement, she expresses social exclusion because her interests do not fit White cultural norms. Her double consciousness about how White friends may view her for her ethnic interests is a subtle but powerful social pressure in repressing her displays of ethnic identity with friends who are not co-ethnics. I pressed further to understand why her White friends would perceive Korean media as odd, and she said:

They live in a White world with White friends, and if one of my White friends were like can I watch one of your Korean movies, I’d be like, uh, okay, you know. I don’t know if they’d like it or not, you know. I don’t want them to think like Korean movies and Korean people are like weird.

Lucy points to the fear of social reprimand while, at the same time, making an implicit critique of Whites’ lack of multicultural fluency or interest because they live in a society and media that privilege White Americans (Gabriel, 1998; McIntosh, 2004; Tierney, 2006).

This fear of White reprisal is a salient one since all the participants live in neighborhoods where they have little choice but to interact with and become friends with Whites. The friendships, however, are incomplete because there is conscious and unconscious social anxiety about conforming to White norms to gain social acceptance and not be considered ‘weird.’ The weirdness, however, is also appropriated as a form of empowerment. Being ‘weird’ is a reason for enjoying and identifying with Korean media because it allows a unique identity to which only they and their co-ethnic friends are privy. By believing others are unable to ‘get’ Korean media, they claim an empowered identity through their ability to understand.

Dick, who is in the immersion identity position, says, ‘Because like I said in the surveys [media diary entries], they’re [the movies] unique, I guess, because people in America would never get these kinds of ideas like The Young Bride [sic].’ Amy, who is in the immersion identity position, elaborates, saying, ‘Oh, okay. Because like, I mean, I think American people may not be able to understand these stuff. They’re just going to be like, you know, some of the “Twinkies” [see next section] have a hard time understanding these stuff.’ Amy, like Dick, carves a unique identity, but she creates even more social space and hints at intra-ethnic tension by placing ‘Twinkies’ between KAs like herself and non-Koreans. By locating ‘Twinkies’ in this way, she points out what she sees as an unbridgeable culture gulf because if even some co-ethnics cannot understand, she implies there is little possibility for a non-Korean to be able to culturally understand Korean media.

Because of the interaction of these two reasons, inter-ethnic boundaries are rigid. In fact, the question about sharing Korean media with non-Koreans is itself understood to be outlandish. Most reacted like Lucy when I asked the question of inter-ethnic sharing:

Interviewer: Okay. When you talk about celebrities and stuff with your friends, do you ever talk about these celebrities with your White friends?

Lucy: No! (Laughs).

Interviewer: Or the shows or anything?

Lucy: No. (Laughs).

Because Korean media are considered a unique part of their identities and are considered media Whites will likely ridicule, Lucy responds as if the questions themselves are ridiculous, laughing at the thought of sharing Korean media with her non-Korean and, especially, White friends.

They share as an act of resistance to White norms and the creation of multicultural understanding. Sandra says, ‘Yeah, I’d show it to them, and, then, try to make them understand. I think I have shown it to some people.’ Frank purposefully takes opportunities to share his pride in his ethnic identity by sharing Korean media with his non-Korean friends when opportunities are present:

Some of my White friends have Xangas [social networking homepages], too, and they were going around and went to my Xanga, and I have a Korean song on it. Then, they started to listen to it because it just comes on, and the next day at school, they were like wow, is that Korean music or whatever? I was like, yeah, and they were like yeah, that’s pretty cool, and I’d start talking to them and be like we have a lot more…I wouldn’t be like walk up to someone and be like we have Korean music because there are some people who aren’t going to be interested, I guess. If they are, we just talk more about it.

For those few in the integration identity position who do share, they feel their efforts are worth the possibility of rejection and social censure. This makes sense since they are invested in their bicultural identities.

Intra-ethnic boundaries

Second-generation KA adolescents do not organize themselves in the same ethnic identity positions that researchers use. It is important, therefore, to also examine intra-ethnic organization, boundaries, and tensions. The divisions the participants see themselves and others belonging to are three separate, distinct groups: ‘Fresh off the Boat’ (FOB), ‘Koreans,’ and ‘Twinkies.’ ‘FOBs’ are first-generation KAs who immigrate to the United States as adolescents. They are marked as ‘FOBs’ by their second-generation counterparts because of a perception that ‘FOBs’ reject US identity and are unwilling to acculturate. Second-generation KAs, who self-define and appropriate the identity of ‘Korean,’ include all of the participants in the immersion and some in the integration identity positions. What sets ‘Koreans’ apart is that they have at least a working knowledge of the Korean language, and they use Korean popular cultural participation as a boundary for inclusion. They maintain connections to US culture but, in general, prefer Korean popular culture. On the contrary, ‘Twinkies’ bristle at being defined by their ethnic identity, claiming that knowledge of Korean language and culture is unimportant since they live in the US and since they understand being ethnically Korean as a fundamental essence. More than any other group, ‘Twinkies’ most often self-identify as American or Korean American. Other participants who use the term ‘Korean American’ are those in the integration identity position.

Membership and self-identification within one of these groups affects ethnic identity formation because it defines how they approach other KAs and their own ethnic identities. Participants in this study do not understand the differences as part of ethnic identity formation but, rather, view groups as discrete and view their claimed intra-ethnic identity as morally superior – ‘Twinkies’ view ‘FOBs’ and ‘Koreans’ as ungrateful Americans while ‘Koreans’ view ‘FOBs’ as inauthentic co-ethnics and ‘Twinkies’ as ethnic turncoats. This creates tension between groups and barriers for ethnic identity formation because ideas about who they are affect their ethnic choices.

For ‘Koreans,’ a primary means of policing the borders of ‘Koreanness’ is to define their ethnic identity through knowledge of Korean popular culture. Though KAs in the ambivalence and exploration identity positions tend to view ‘fundamental essence’ as the indicator of being Korean, this is not true for many individuals in the immersion and integration identity positions. Being ethnically Korean only gains partial inclusion; KAs also have to be culturally Korean, and for these teenagers what defines cultural competency is not historical or social knowledge nor is it competency in Korean cultural norms; being Korean means knowing Korean popular culture. This is likely because if other cultural factors are included, ‘FOBs’ would police the borders of ‘Koreanness’ in ways that could marginalize second-generation KAs. Motivated by this claim to Korean authenticity, second-generation KAs claim Korean popular cultural knowledge to protect their ethnic identities. This knowledge is accessible to ethnically invested second-generation KAs who choose to find and view Korean media; on the other hand, native fluency and ease with Korean cultural norms are not accessible because they require lived practice and habitus. Knowledge of Korean popular culture, on the other hand, is accessible though it takes time and effort to cultivate which makes it a useful boundary to define ‘Koreans’ against ‘Twinkies.’ In addition, ‘Koreans’ mark ethnic boundaries with Korean language proficiency, which excludes virtually all non-ethnics and many ‘Twinkies.’ As a clear demonstration of the ways KAs interpret Korean culture through the lens of the local, they hold a far-fetched belief that Korean nationals if given an opportunity to emigrate would choose to acculturate into their destination countries as second-generation KAs have, which is a useful illusion to exclude ‘FOBs.’ For the remainder of this article, I focus on intra-ethnic boundaries between ‘Koreans’ and ‘Twinkies’ maintained through popular cultural knowledge as a marker of second-generation ethnic identity.

For participants in the exploration identity position, in particular, the barriers are overwhelming and exclusive. Jim has many co-ethnic friends, but when talk centers on Korean popular culture, Jim feels excluded, saying, ‘They don’t talk about it a lot, but once in a while they’ll go into a conversation, and I’ll be like okay, and I’ll be standing there and just doing my own thing.’ For Jim, this creates a desire to learn about Korean popular culture:

But, like whenever, but most, some people at our church like sometimes have conversations about different Korean movies or dramas, and every time they start talking about that, then I’m left out of the conversation. Then, I have to just talk to other people about other things. Those times, I’m like, gosh, I wish I saw this or blah, blah, blah, so I could talk about it. I guess that’s one of those times I wanted to watch it.

By not watching Korean media, Jim is unable to gain full inclusion and to be seen as really ‘Korean.’ Likewise, Hannah, who is in the immersion identity position, has felt excluded because she is not as engaged with Korean media as her close circle of friends:

I remember one time they were talking about this drama, and I didn’t watch it, and all of them watched it. I was just sitting there while they were talking about it. It was so boring. They kept talking about it and talking about it, and I didn’t know what they were talking about because I didn’t watch it. So, you have to watch it in order to [fit in].

However, there is little resistance or negotiation to the view that Korean popular cultural fluency is necessary to be considered Korean. The belief has become normalized even among those who are aware that they are marginalized by their exclusion. KAs who want to identify ethnically but do not have the popular cultural fluency to do so blame themselves, believing their ethnic identities are invalidated by not having this knowledge. Linda, who is in the exploration identity position, has found difficulty fitting in with other KA girls, and I asked why she was not yet able to fit in:

Linda: Because I’m not very Koreanish, and I wish I could be.

Interviewer: What do you mean by Koreanish?

Linda: Like lacking in what’s popular in my own age, actors, singers, dancers, movies, dramas.

Because of this perceived deficiency, she chastises herself and is unable to overcome her embarrassment and engage in ethnic conversations:

If I have something really fun in an American movie, I could talk about it with my other friends for some reason, but in Korean movies, I feel uncomfortable with, because obviously you talk with Korean people about Korean movies, and they know a whole lot more than me, about the actors than me.

Therefore, Korean media are used to police boundaries of ethnic identity for second-generation KAs that define and protect ‘Korean’ identity because of the difficulty in gaining proficiency in both the Korean language and Korean popular cultural knowledge.

Gender boundaries

Boys and girls use Korean media differently primarily because KA boys gender Korean media as feminine. KA girls, on the other hand, do not see Korean media as gendered and often express surprise that boys do. For boys, the reasons are because of a generalized perception of ‘girliness’ in Korean culture, which leads to media that are cute and focus on love themes. Tony, who is in the exploration identity position, says the reason Korean media are ‘girly’ is because Korean culture itself is:

Like some of the stuff, like my pastor [of the English ministry] told me, he went to Korea, and some of the clothes the guys wear are pretty weird, so I don’t know. It’s just that. But, I think that Korean stuff is more girly, I guess. I don’t know.

This quote has more salience for Tony because a respected member of the KA community affirmed Tony’s beliefs about Korean culture’s perceived feminine qualities. Because of perceived gender ambiguity in Korea, Tony interprets Korean culture as feminine and undesirable. Tim, who is also in the exploration identity position, says Korean media is feminine because Korean actors and actresses act ‘cute.’ He says, ‘Yeah. I can’t explain it that well, but, you know, Korean acting, they always do like the cute Korean act or whatever. There’s a lot of that stuff in these comedies.’ Similarly, Joseph, who is in the ambivalence identity position, sees love themes as feminine:

Because most of them are just sappy, corny junk that girls like. Where the girl and the guy is trying to get married, parents are stopping them, and girls are like, oh, it’s sad, but guys are like, let’s go watch an action film.

Joseph's quote is especially revealing because he clearly equates love themes and ‘girliness’ with ‘junk.’ This association clearly shows a derisive attitude toward gendered female media products. Not only is it more difficult to identify with because it is feminine, it is considered worthless. It is not surprising, then, that boys are less interested in transnational media and their ‘girly’ ethnic culture. This certainly has clear implications for differences in the use between boys and girls. I asked Leonard, who is in the ambivalence identity position, what he sees as the differences in use of Korean media by boys and girls:

Leonard: No. God, I forgot his name. But they’re always talking about like Korean guys [celebrities] who they think are hot or whatever.

Interviewer: Okay. What about your guy friends? Do they talk about that stuff, too?

Leonard: Um, guy friends? Not really. They’re not really. Anyways, they don’t really talk about that stuff. They’re more into American. I don’t know why, but I guess the girls are into the dramas and stuff, and the guys don’t really like that. Chick flick kind of stuff. I like it, though.

Clearly, he points to a gendered difference in use by referring to Korean films as ‘chick flicks.’ He also notices accurately that KA girls are more interested in Korean media, and boys tend to avoid it and turn to US media.

Girls, however, do not perceive Korean media as gendered. In fact, when asked about this, Elaine, who is in the exploration identity position, provided a fairly typical response. She said, ‘Girly?! How is it feminine?’ This perception of feminine Korean media is not shared between boys and girls, with girls often pointing to the fighting in the films. When asking Karen, who is in the integration identity position, who she talks to about Korean media, she said, ‘Mostly girl friends because guy friends are less interested, I think. If they are interested, they get bored after five minutes of talking about it, but girls can talk about it for hours.’ Because of their increased interest in transnational media, they are more likely to guard the borders of ethnic identity with Korean popular cultural knowledge as the ticket to entry.

Finally, several boys in the study criticize girls for their interest in Korean media and particularly male celebrities. I asked Frank, who is in the integration identity position, which gender is more interested in Korean media. He replied, ‘Girls, of course. It’s always the girls who are like competing. Guys are like they’re all hot. Girls like go specifically into detail. They’re like this guy’s so cute here. Me, I’m not into comparing.’ Overall, KA boys do not see girls’ interest in Korean celebrities as an expression of ethnic interest, but, instead, they marginalize girls’ talk as trivial. Dick, who is in the immersion identity position, is blunt with his criticism. He says, ‘When you listen to it, it’s kind of stupid because they’re dreaming about a guy who’s an actor, and they can’t ever like have a relationship with him. I don’t know. In that aspect, I think it’s kind of, yeah, stupid.’

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is to examine the ways second-generation KA adolescents use transnational Korean media to construct and maintain social boundaries. This is an important area of inquiry because it helps fill a gap on second-generation APAs’ use of transnational (diaspora) media, it builds on audience study of racialized ethnic groups by demonstrating that interpretive communities form within as well as between ethnic groups, and it builds on literature on media use, more generally, adding to what Means Coleman (2000) has argued is a need for studies that demonstrate the ways racialized ethnic minorities incorporate and use media in their social lives. Finally, it also connects different disciplines’ understandings of ethnic identity construction and media. For instance, a developmental psychological perspective informs the ways ethnic identity formation shapes intra-ethnic social collectivities, linking to anthropological/ethnic studies’ findings on ethnic boundary formation by helping to reveal the ways KAs make sense of their ethnic identity formation as separate subcultural communities, and these two perspectives are tied together with media studies research on diasporic audiences that explains the ways global flows of media are interpreted at the site of the local.

Through the construction of inter-ethnic boundaries, intra-ethnic boundaries, and gender boundaries, it is apparent that transnational media are tools through which second-generation KAs construct ‘new ethnicities.’ Their hybrid identities are formed by drawing upon the transnational to inform their local experience that intersects with their US-centric views of gender, their status as racialized ethnic minorities, and their attempts to construct a local understanding of authentic ‘Koreanness.’ However, because boys gender Korean media and celebrities as less masculine based on US norms, they are less likely to use Korean media as a resource to construct ethnic identity. For KA participants who do watch Korean media, their experiences as marginalized racial others motivates them to use Korean media to affirm and legitimate their ethnic identity, constructing a perception of uniqueness, thus leading to inter-ethnic boundaries with non-Koreans and even between co-racial peers.

In addition to inter-ethnic boundaries, second-generation KAs create intra-ethnic boundaries, using familiarity with Korean popular culture as an ethnic marker. Ethnic boundaries are maintained by only a few cultural indicators (Barth, 1969; Blom, 1969; Smith, 1991), and for second-generation KAs, the two most prominent factors are language proficiency and Korean popular cultural awareness. Their negotiation of cultural markers leads to exclusive boundary formation that is formed in the spaces between their identities that legitimate their ethnic choices while also creating boundaries by which they exclude or marginalize KA peers who do not make similar choices. Without popular culture knowledge, for example, KAs are pejoratively described as ‘Twinkies.’

To extend the work, it is important to also understand how or if the findings are relevant to other racialized ethnic groups. The choice of second-generation KAs was motivated in part by their growing numbers in the US but also because of the growing strength of Korean media (Hanaki et al., 2007; Leong, 2002; Shim, 2006), which provides well-produced resources and many legitimated resources (worldwide popularity and critical reception) around which identity can be constructed. It is important to understand how other APA groups make sense of their racialized ethnic identities without the benefit of a strong transnational media system. It would also be beneficial to understand how biracial KAs make sense of Korean media as their bodies as well as their experiences are hybrid.

In addition, there are some limitations that should be highlighted. First, the participants were recruited primarily through ethnic churches. This may have led to important differences in their use of media either because of their religious views or their socialization in an ethnic institution. Finally, four of the five DVDs that were shown to participants are sometimes categorized as teenage romantic comedies. Although the movies do not conform to US genre norms, the responses from KAs may have been gendered through a US lens, perhaps influencing their perceptions of their media use, more broadly.