Immigration and social capital in a Korean-American women’s online community: Supporting acculturation, cultural pluralism, and transnationalism

Abstract

This study of a Korean-American women’s online community, also known as the “MissyUSA” community, has incorporated the concept of social capital with an important topic within each of three major migration research areas—legal immigration status in assimilation, the retention of Korean culinary culture in cultural pluralism, and transnational plans in transnationalism. The central argument of this article is that this “MissyUSA” community creates social capital for its online members. One important form of social capital stressed here is social resources that correspond to its online members’ (information seekers) access to valuable information regarding the process of obtaining legal status as documented immigrants, Korean-style cuisines, and their transnational plans. Moreover, social support is also regarded in this study as another form of social capital. In this case, the “MissyUSA” community becomes a network of social supporters by which they (respondents) support its information seekers through the transmission of their knowledge and/or through their positive emotional reactions.