Between two cultures in Hawai'i

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

•	Meet author Mary Danico Book signing, "The 1.5 Generation: Becoming Korean American in Hawai'i" (2004, $21, University of Hawai'i Press), 2 p.m. today, Waldenbooks, Kahala Mall Speaking at the free Spring Colloquium Series, 4 p.m. tomorrow, Center for Korean Studies conference room, University of Hawai'i—Manoa. Information: 956-7041

"He said, 'Oh, you're a 1.5-er,'" she recalled. "I was so insulted."

Not that it's truly an insult; it's just that Danico, an associate professor at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, always thought of herself simply as a Korean-born immigrant and wasn't prepared for the terminology that sociologists bat around.

In this case, the expression refers to Korean Americans who emigrated as children and thus grow up culturally between their first-generation parents and the born-in-America second generation.

It can refer to any immigrant group arriving anywhere in the United States, but the subject of Danico's recent book and tomorrow's colloquium (see box) concerns Koreans who move to Hawai'i. And that experience, she said, is in some ways easier and in other ways harder than the acculturation of new Americans on the mainland.

Danico, who adapted her sociology doctoral dissertation to produce the book, was not quite 7 when her family moved first to Guam for four months and to Hawai'i for a year before finally settling in the San Francisco area. She speaks fluent Korean and unaccented English, and is the quintessential 1.5-er, at the crossroads between two cultures.

However, she said, she's met others who emigrated even younger and identify closely with their first-generation parents.

"It's not the age that determines whether someone becomes a 1.5-er. It's the setting in which the person was socialized," she said.

"I knew one person who came to Hawai'i when she was 3, but she grew up in a heavily Korean-speaking community, in Kukui Gardens. Now she switches from a Korean accent to pidgin. So it's really not the age factor — it's the cultural experience we have."

What makes the Hawai'i cultural experience distinct — and a bit easier — is the presence of a "local" culture comprising multiple ethnicities, all speaking the lingua franca of pidgin, Danico said.

It's a central zone between their culture of origin and the Western milieu they hope to adopt, a place, she said, where the 1.5-er can "feel accepted."

"They can pass as being local," she said. "They can hide from the institutionalized racism that way."

The embrace of the local lifestyle seemed especially warm for working-class families, Danico added. Newly arrived middle-class Koreans seemed bent more on acclimating to standard-English, American culture.

But there is a down side to Hawai'i for the young immigrant, she said. Koreans in the Islands endure certain stereotypes that don't exist on the Mainland (although, she acknowledged, other biases thrive there).

One is the notion that Korean women who emigrate here are associated with the hostess bars that proliferated in the 1970s, during the start of the second wave of Korean immigration.

"For Korean-American women, this impacts their ethnic identity," Danico said. "Many who are professionals are asked, 'Oh, do you have an aunt or a cousin who's a bar hostess?' "

In addition, the Korean population here is much smaller than that of the West Coast and is seen as less powerful, she added.

"One friend mentioned that she really wanted to be Filipino. Another said she wished she was Japanese," she said. "It's interesting how the racial dynamics are in Hawai'i. On the other hand, there are a large number of prominent Asian-American role models to aspire to here."

In giving talks on the 1.5 generation, Danico has discovered that her findings resonate with other ethnic groups across Hawai'i. One Filipino-American father once told her that he could relate the same message to the experience of his children growing up in the United States.

But in Hawai'i, the Korean Americans who arrived as children have the potential to serve as linguistic and cultural translators for the newer immigrants, she said.

"Because the community is small," Danico added, "I think the 1.5-ers really do have the chance to be the bridge."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.