TRACING TRANS-PACIFIC CONTINUITY IN THE FAITH OF SECOND-GENERATION KOREAN CHRISTIANS IN THE U.S.A.

Abstract

This paper aims at tracing trans-pacific historical continuity, as it is demonstrated in the faith of second-generation Korean Christians. Second-generation Korean Christians are the children of Korean immigrants who went to the U.S.A., following the liberalization of the immigration laws in 1965 that removed the national origins quota system and ended the exclusion of Asians from immigration. About eighty percent of them are Protestants or Catholics, which corresponds with the Protestant or Catholic percentage of first generation Koreans. Spending their childhood and adolescence in Korean ethnic churches, second-generation Koreans acquire the evangelical religiosity of their parents which originated from Korea. Furthermore, being born or raised in the U.S.A., they also obtain American evangelical religiosity. Exploring the aforementioned socio-religious reality, this article claims that Korean Christianity, Korean ethnic churches and American evangelical Christianity are not very different from one another, and that, in fact, they are almost identical. While second-generation Korean Christians are socialized into the conservative Christianity of Korean ethnic churches brought from Korea, they identify with and are influenced by American evangelical Christianity. Thus, the faith of second-generation Koreans shows the trans-pacific continuity between Korea and America.