America expects all immigrants to assimilate to a certain degree. In order to succeed in America, you must be willing to assimilate. Since that’s what’s expected of asians, you shouldn’t dismiss each other as ‘twinkies’ just because you’ve assimilated according to American standards. As for the article, it seems like Clara is just trying to bridge the gap as she said in her article. And she’s accused as a ‘twinkie’? I don’t understand you people.

A 2nd generation Korean-American assessing a 1.5 Korean-American. Wow, I’m surprised at the amount of ignorance and double standard shown by 2nd generation Korean-Americans such as lilily2 who are quick to use the label ‘twinkie’ when in fact they are the real ‘twinkies’. I’m glad I’m white and wasn’t born a Korean. All the posts made by 2nd-gen twinkies here make me glad I’m not of an asian descent. This is why America shouldn’t accept immigants from the ‘Baejae lands’.

it seems miss clara kim’s korean is really much poorer than she believes it to be. that plus her naive arrogance would transcend her language inabilities to invite antagonizing.

as a 2nd gen student who grew up in the midwest (and whose family hails from poor baekjae lands) i find this rant annoying, not least from the 1.7 moniker. yes, i agree it must be a west coast thing b/c no one in Chicago refers to themselves this way.

perhaps clara expected to be lauded for her english skills and be made much of in korea. maybe 14 years ago (possibly around the time she’d left?) that’d been the case. as it is, she must have been in for a rude awakening when confronted with koreans’ general understanding of 동포’s to be rather poor and uneducated.

the fact that she’s unaware of these stereotypes and is quickly regarded as a ‘foreigner’ speaks volumes about her (lack of) exposure to korean society and culture. it astounds me that she would then claim her “1.7″ heritage after this.

her total lack of hesitation reminds me of a lot of twinkies who think they’re fully korean just because they ate “korean” food growing up and had to ‘deal’ with speaking to parents in english. please. some of us learned korean by ourselves because our (1st generation) parents only spoke english at home, for their kids’ sakes. how many gyopo’s have you seen reading over their parent’s disserations written in english?

i’ve often noted that korean-americans who had the most disturbing identity issues have parents who can’t speak english while their kids can’t speak korean. thus begins the agony…

The term 1.5 generation or 1.5G refers to people who immigrate to a new country before or during their early teens. They earn the label the “1.5 generation” because they bring with them characteristics from their home country but continue their assimilation and socialization in the new country. Their identity is thus a combination of new and old culture and tradition.

Depending on the age of immigration, the community into which they settle, extent of education in their native country, and other factors, 1.5 generation individuals will identify with their countries of origin to varying degrees. However, their identification will be affected by their experiences growing up in the new country. 1.5G individuals are often bilingual and find it easier to be assimilated into the local culture and society than people who immigrated as adults.

Many 1.5 generation individuals are bi-cultural, combining both cultures - culture from the country of origin with the culture of the new country.

It seems like the only thing that makes 1.7 different from a 1.5 is their country of birth. 1.7 being born in the U.S. as opposed to a 1.5 being born in Korea.

That’s debatable.

#4 is my diplomatic way of saying your #5.

In my estimation… I’d say that 1.7 generation is basically a gyopo who:

1. Can’t speak Korean very well or does so with a thick accent where taxi drivers think you may be Chinese or Japanese trying to speak Korean.

2. More of an American mindset where personal space and privacy standards find Korea rather uncomfortable.

3. Americanized enough, but not Koreaized enough to avoid the Korean fax pases.

4. Americanized enough (or misinterprets his or her Americanization) where they think that the freak’in world revolves around them 24/7.

5. Hopelessly self-absorbed.

Thats just bad reasoning. I know lots of Koreans who came to the states at age 8 to 12 whose Korean sucks. It depends on how much you use it on a day to day basis. Then you have the one who came in their mid to later teens and ended up not being very good in either language.