2006 Tinker Summer Research Report Mirian Lee Spanish and Portuguese "Searching and Tracing New Urban Discourses: Koreans in São Paulo"

One of the main Korean markets in Bom Retiro ( São Paulo ) Rua Tres Rios.

As indicated in the title of my project, the purpose of this research was to seek and trace a new discourse in Brazilian culture with the Korean immigrant community and their latter generations dealing with dual identities through the process of transculturalization. My current work as a graduate student focuses on tracing modern urban figures of Brazil and their discourses as a consequence of the historical and theoretical process of modernity. There are two fundamental perspectives and visions related to this project. The first viewpoints are sociological and anthropological-based attempts to understand how a new ethnic group has come to assimilate and acculturate themselves in a new and different social structure. The presence, interactions, and local/regional contributions of this burgeoning population is new and intriguing in many ways.

The second perspective aims for a more literary approach, by generating new discourses through textual, visual and other media. Currently, there are no known resources or references of the Korean community in Brazil in the United States nor much in Brazil . Gathering these materials can help us understand the social and cultural vision of respective individuals of the community. Furthermore, we hope to achieve a better understanding of the construction of their identity as an Asian figure within a Latin American society.

Upon my arrival in São Paulo, I purchased the Korean “yellow pages” where listings of all Korean-owned and managed businesses could be found. Thereafter, I immediately began contacting local Korean newspapers offices such as News Brasil, Diário Nammi Dong-A, The Dong-a Ilbo to access their archives and conduct interviews with their respective directors. Many of these newspaper offices were very cautious about talking to non-Koreans and it was initially difficult to gain trust and access due to language and cultural barriers. Most of them are run in small apartment offices or in very desolate, precarious locations. Interestingly enough, once arriving at these locations, I was first asked if I was of Korean descent and thereafter, if I spoke Korean. If I answered yes to both inquiries, I was able to enter their office. Once I was able to establish rapport by explaining that I was a university researcher in Luso-Brazilian studies seeking to know more about the Korean diaspora in São Paulo, an open dialogue began to flow. One goal that I was unable to attain in this portion of my research was to collect newspaper archives that the Korean community has been printing and reading. Most of these prints were and continue to be written in Korean though some have attempted to incorporate Portuguese sections for the younger generations. However, according to the news agencies, these bilingual projects did not seem to be fruitful and were often short-lived. I was only able to hear references by individuals remembering seeing these sections in the newspapers. In addition, not only were these bilingual archives lost but so were past Korean newspaper editions. They did not properly archive them and therefore were unable to share them.

Several different Korean newspapers in São Paulo.

Within São Paulo, I visited some important and known entities in the Korean community such as the Korean Association, Igreja Presbiteriana Unida Coreana de São Paulo (one of the oldest Korean immigrant churches in São Paulo), and Colégio Polilogos (a Korean-Brazilian school). In addition, I visited various Korean-owned garment businesses (namely Kan-Kan and Sedanbi). At these various places, I was able to meet with the president of the Korean Association, a female pastor who had written a dissertation on the Korean immigrant women in São Paulo, a Korean-speaking principal and some Korean owners of the known wholesale garment district. I also met with professor and translator Dr. Im Yun Jung who recently translated a Korean poetic collection into Portuguese and was nominated for the prestigious Jabuti prize. Since textual archives were hard to find, I began to conduct interviews with these individuals, seeking their personal stories and perspectives as a starting point to the construction of their assimilated and perhaps dual identity as Asians in Latin America.

During my time in São Paulo, I had the opportunity of accomplishing one of my main goals: to find literary texts written by Korean immigrants in Brazil. Even though the texts are in Korean, they are crucial, as they only require translation into Portuguese or English to later support my dissertation. Some of these resources include literary magazines with one in particular with the translated title of “ Tropical Culture”. A small group of Korean immigrants in São Paulo created this publication during the late 1980’s. As each of these members began to immigrate to other countries or pass away, the collaboration dissipated with nine literary magazines being produced during this short period of time. In these magazines, we find essays, opinion columns, short stories, poetry regarding their new life and perspectives of Koreans assimilating and acculturating to Brazilian culture. In addition, they even have a section of translated canonical ‘crônicas’ by Machado de Assis or poetry by Carlos Drummond de Andrade into Korean. Such texts have an introduction of the original author’s biography and history so that its readers could become informed about Brazil and its literary culture. I also returned with some current newspapers that were published during my stay in São Paulo and a commemorative catalogue of the 40 th anniversary of Korean immigration in Brazil printed in 2003 with the sponsorship of many local congressman and other public figures from São Paulo. This catalogue could be considered one official source that provides a narrative and historical record of the Korean immigrant history.

From the above sources and encounters, I was able to gather as much information that I could from the first immigrant generation of Koreans. Their discourse provided an interesting perspective where they shared a very strong cultural attachment to Korea and their assimilation and acculturation was rather compartmentalized. It only led me to be curious in learning of the younger generation who were born and grew up with Portuguese as their first language and Brazil as their national culture. Once I reached this portion of my research, I was almost at the end of my stay and had the chance to interview three young individuals: Young Kyung Won, Wesley Hwang and Alex Kang. Their perspectives regarding identities, culture, and social roles held a much more cosmopolitan character.

The outcome of my travel to São Paulo held its share of success and failure from my initial proposal. I went to São Paulo with the expectation to find archives and possible literary sources written in Portuguese by the Korean diaspora. Although I returned from this initial trip with limited textual sources, my personal encounter within their local setting led me to the most rewarding part of my research in Brazil: meeting and getting to know different individuals as they shared their personal narratives, reflecting upon their new dual, deconstructed cultural identity. Many of the entities I visited and people I met had never heard of anyone interested in making a collection of archive of their presence, history and narratives. No one had ever really knocked on their door and inquired about what culture and Brazil meant to them. With time, my pursuit led to an interview to the Internal Bulletin of the Korean Association so that they could print an article about my research proposal as an aim to announce to interested members of the Korean diaspora to share their personal literary prose. As the writers of “ Tropical Culture” open their first edition with the following words: “ Culture and culture shock, at this very cross, it becomes a moment of making one shocking memory after another, that is the reality of our current lives….could we even try to compare Korean culture versus Brazilian culture or do we now find overlaps and hazy boundaries to our identities?”, this very perspective and desire to understand these modern notions of boundary, culture and national identity should be extended through the discovery of new urban narratives. I believe that this initial research trip allowed me to gather important social and literary information regarding the Korean diaspora, as there is a lack of. The purpose of this research trip was to seek and trace new Asian voices in Brazil, trying to understand how they view themselves within Brazilian culture and what it means for them to claim “Brazilian” as part of their identity. From this project, I was able to begin to open a new perspective and study on how new and much different immigrant waves from the late twentieth century, understand, obtain, acculturate or assimilate themselves to Brazil.  

Cover of Korean magazine celebrating the 40th year of Korean immigration to Brazil.