By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist
Two items in the news made me think about the patriotism of Korean Americans.
The first item was a lawsuit filed by a Korean American golfer who was called a ``traitor'' by a local newspaper in Korea because she chose to become an American citizen. She was previously a dual citizen of the United States and Korea, thus forfeiting her chances to play for Korea and bring honor to it, hence the name calling by the newspaper and the lawsuit.
The second item had to do with the U.S. government being rather annoyed by the frequent leaks of sensitive intelligence it shares with the Korean government once it reaches the latter. The situation got so bad that according to the report, the Americans were considering withholding some intelligence from Koreans.
All this led me to a conversation with a Korean friend about the case of Robert Kim, whom my Korean friend called a ``patriot,'' quite a contrast to what the golfer got, and for quite a contrasting deed. Robert Kim was born in Seoul in 1940 and became an American citizen in 1974. He became a U.S. Navy employee as a computer expert. In that capacity, according to the criminal charges filed against him in 1996, he handed some classified ``top secret'' files to the Korean Embassy in the U.S.
He eventually served a 7-year sentence in a federal prison, over the great consternation and even outrage in Korea, which considered him a good Korean and, according to my friend, a patriot. I was somewhat confused and asked him, ``You mean for the United States?'' My friend said, ``No, for Korea.'' I asked, still confused, ``But, wasn't he an American citizen and wasn't America his country? How could he be a patriot for Korea?''
Eventually the confusion was resolved in the new meaning of patriotism ― Kim's act of helping Korea by stealing secrets from his country of choice. When I asked him if he knew that Kim had taken an oath of citizenship in the U.S., which binds him to be patriotic to ``the U.S.,'' his country, he just laughed the issue away as insignificant.
It is love of one's country. It is simple if one has a single entity as his country. It's a bit complicated if one has two countries, possibly one born in and the other adopted. It's even more complicated if there are conflicts of interest between the two, as in the case of Robert Kim. I am not sure if he volunteered the intelligence to the Korean embassy or if the embassy called on him to be ``patriotic'' to his mother country. I don't believe it matters. The fact remains that Kim chose to be patriotic for Korea, his mother country, not the one he adopted in his adult life.
Kim's case raises a broad question about all American citizens of Korean ancestry. Are they all ``Korean'' patriots in hiding, willing to rise to the occasion to help their mother country? The count of Koreans in the U.S. numbers at 1.5 million. All American citizens, presumably, have no questions about which country's patriots they are.
An interesting report tells of the huge Korean contingent that came out to cheer for the Korean team in the WBC tournament in San Diego, California, which also included an American team. It was also famously observed that, during the Los Angeles Olympics, the Korean Americans went all out, cheering for and feeding the Korean athletes. Along with this recollection, a research report on Asians in America ranked Koreans the ``most isolated'' of all Asian immigrants to America.
Even the ``gyopo'' population, those who are otherwise completely ``Americanized'' in behavior and language, seems to have no questions as to whose citizens they are in their hearts. It's surprising how the gyopos have been taken out of Korea but Korea has not been taken out them at all. In so many ways, they display all the signs of being potential Robert Kims if their mother country comes calling for their ``patriotic'' duties.
Not surprisingly, a few of the regular readers and respondents of The Korea Times columns seem to reside in the United States, reading a Korean newspaper and regularly responding to what they read. Their attention to things Korean may appear quite normal to most Koreans. To me, it seems rather odd. Don't these people live in America, working and occupied with things American? Why are they wholly and almost morbidly absorbed into Korea and things Korean while living and working in another country, presumably as its fully-fledged citizens and aspirants of great things for themselves in their country?
Those who have observed Little Korea in Los Angeles know how alive and all-compassing Korea is in America, so a Korean never has to speak a word of English or eat a single morsel of American food in his entire life in America. No wonder Koreans are the highest on the Isolation Index among all Asian immigrants. Even generations later, Koreans seem to manage to remain Korean in America. One wonders if America, and not Korea, is their home and country.
I confess this is about as far as my speculation has gone on the issue of patriotism and Korean Americans.
One final question that lingers in my mind is this: What are American officials in the government, who are charged with defending their nation from its foes, thinking of, concerning Koreans in America? Or, to put it in another way, can Koreans really become ``American'' in their hearts, and not just in fact?
The writer can be reached at
The opinions expressed and the observations described in these articles are strictly the writer's own and do not represent any official position of the University of Maryland University College or the USFK.