Contested everyday cultural citizenship: “Mixed race” children and their ethnicized citizenship in South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines how the everyday cultural citizenship of “mixed race” children of one Korean parent and one immigrant parent is contested. This study transposes the concept of ethnicized citizenship to mixed race children and their everyday practices of citizenship based on ethnicity and parent(s). Relying primarily on the personal narratives of mixed race children, derived from essay competitions, this research comparatively analyzes the experiences of three categories of mixed race children: co-ethnic (with a Korean father and ethnic Korean mother from China), inter-Asian (Korean father and Asian [non-Korean] mother), and multiracial (one Korean parent and one European or African American parent). This article argues that the ethnicized citizenship of an immigrant mother operates as a mechanism for institutional and socio-cultural exclusion of mixed race children.