Mixed-Race Politics and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in South Korean Media by Ji-Hyun Ahn

Author:Ji-Hyun Ahn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Japanese, who have a proven market for Korean TV and movie stars, are just beginning to notice the Henney phenomenon, sending reporters to Seoul to interview him. “The Japanese see me as a Korean, not an American,” he [Henney] says. (Wallace 2007, emphasis added)

The excerpt illustrates that Henney’s racial/national identity as a white mixed-race individual and a Korean-American is read differently by different local audiences as he moves across regions. In the USA, Henney’s body is predominantly seen as “Asian” (or non-white) as exemplified by Tom Ford’s remark, but the Korean media captures his Korean blood tie to mobilize his exotic appeal as a white biracial person to present a global image of Korea, just as it did with Hines Ward . Likewise, Henney’s hyphenated nationality and ethnicity takes on different dynamics in different contexts. In America, he is seen as a Korean-American, such that his ethnicity is subordinate to his nationality; in Korea, he is viewed as white-Korean, which indicates that his race (white) is appended to his ethnicity (Korean). Yet in the case of white-Koreans, whiteness also signifies American; America is racialized as white in the Korean imaginary. In addition, Henney’s impression that the Japanese read him as Korean, not as American, suggests that in the Japanese context, racial proximity is preferred to citizenship when reading Henney’s body. Put differently, some Japanese audiences might read Henney as Korean because he looks (more) like an Asian. The existence of diverse readings of Henney’s racial(ized) body point to his flexible citizenship as well as his hybrid, multiple identities and signifies difference in racial relations across different countries and regions.

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