First-Generation Korean American Women’s Mobility: Intersections of Ethnicity/Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

This chapter looks into life-writing texts of the first-generation Korean American women who came to the United States in the early twentieth century, such as Mary Paik Lee’s Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America (1990) and Lanhei Kim Park’s Facing Four Ways: The Autobiography of Lanhei Kim Park (Mrs. No-Yong Park) (1984). It examines how these early Korean women’s lives and life stories are characterized by ethnicity/race, class, and gender by looking at the nature of their movements across the international borders and around the continental America. By doing so, this chapter reveals the heterogeneous characteristics of Korean American and Asian American mobility—heavily influenced not only by race but also by class and gender.