I was only six years old when my family and I visited Arkansas in 2010. Photographs serve as my primary memory of the trip, because I only faintly recall actually being there. And one of the most interesting images from my family vacation is of a traditional Korean building, the Songahm Martial Arts Gate. The unexpected landmark honors Hweng Ung Lee, the Korean-American Taekwondo Grand Master who created the largest international martial arts organization, headquartered in Little Rock since 1977.
My sister and me, Songahm Martial Arts Gate, Little Rock, Arkansas (2010)
When we visited Arkansas, the four of us increased the state's Korean-American population by roughly 0.2%. Of its nearly three million residents, only about 2000 are of Korean descent. So a building dedicated to a Korean-American immigrant is surely an eye-opening site. And a movie about Koreans living in rural Arkansas would be equally odd. But with the release of the film Minari, 2020 proved anything is possible.
Minari is a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung. It follows a Korean-American family starting a farm in Arkansas during the 1980s. Minari is the Korean word for the Java water dropwort, an edible Asian herb that thrives in all sorts of inhospitable conditions. The plant serves as a metaphor for immigrants putting down roots in an unfamiliar community.
Jacob Yi, played by Steven Yeun, moves his family from California to Arkansas to grow Korean vegetables. He chooses Arkansas because the land is ten times cheaper than in California. Jacob's motivation is similar to the 19th century American pioneers who migrated westward, obtaining inexpensive farmland in the vast frontier. Thus, Jacob's story is an American story, minus the indignities of Manifest Destiny.
Alan Kim and Steven Yeun in Minari
The romanticized version of the Westward Expansion ignores the price paid by Native Americans. While adhering to a racist white supremacy ideology, the European descendants flourished without regard for the original inhabitants' welfare. If Manifest Destiny is the quintessential American story, Jacob's narrative is not comparable. However, the Yi family's desired destiny is not without criticism.
Jacob's goal is to escape the drudgery of a low-paying job and forge a self-reliant career to support his wife and two children. Like the frontiersmen, his determined purpose is to exploit the land for profit. Although Jacob does not wish harm on the locals, he does not strive to assimilate with the white Arkansas residents. To help run this business, he reluctantly hires a white farmhand. Furthermore, Jacob attends the local church but shows little interest in making friends. He limits interactions with the locals and plans to cater only to Korean-American customers.
Jacob's single-minded pursuit appears to support a racist Asian-American stereotype. By refusing to assimilate with the community, he does not seek to become a "true" American. He seems to capitalize on the nation's abundant resources without giving back to society. However, one can argue that Jacob's motives are pragmatic. He chooses to do business with Koreans because of his familiarity with the language and culture.
Interestingly, Lee Issac Chung does not imply that Jacob's intentions are reactionary to discrimination. Surprisingly, the white Arkansas residents welcome the foreigners. Although the Yi family's immigrant experience is fraught with hardships and setbacks, it is not because of racism. Thus, Jacob's immigrant journey is unique. In a traditional narrative, ethnic and racial groups congregate in neighborhoods to form a protective barrier against discrimination. Instead, Jacob is a lone wolf in the wilderness.
Youn Yuh-Jung plays Jacob’s mother-in-law. For her brilliant performance, the South Korean actress won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the film, her character plants minari seeds she brought from Korea along a creek on the family's farm. As the herb begins to flourish, the innocent vegetation is a novelty that does not disrupt the environment. A Korean-American family in the 1980s Arkansas represents a similar dynamic, generating curiosity rather than animosity. But what if minari becomes an invasive species like the Asian plant kudzu? The kudzu earned the nickname "the vine that ate the South," spreading rapidly throughout the southern United States and choking native species of sunlight, water, and nutrients.
Kudzu invading trees in Georgia (wikipedia.org)
As Korean-Americans immigrants find success, some may believe that they benefit at the expense of white Americans. Like the notorious kudzu plant, pre-existing residents may accuse the foreign transplants of stealing resources. Thus, an isolated Korean farmer in Arkansas may escape disapproval, but immigrant groups that thrive in major cities are prime targets of racism and xenophobia.
The typical experience of first-generation Korean-Americans is similar to other ethnic groups, including European immigrants. They congregated with those who speak the same language and practice the same religion. But subsequent generations of white immigrants incorporated into the population, no longer needing to hyphenate their American status. However, for Asian-Americans, complete assimilation is not possible.
When European immigrants' descendants shed their accents, they can blend in with the majority white American society. They can proudly assert their American identity without others questioning where they are from. But it's different for racial minorities. Even after many generations, Asian-Americans who have lost all ties to their ancestral land are still foreigners in the eyes of many white Americans.
I visited my "homeland" with my family in 2019. To be honest, I was not too excited to travel to Korea. When a classmate once told me to "go back to China," I responded that "I'm American, I was born here, my parents were born in Korea (not China), and I have never even been to Korea." By setting foot on my parents' birthplace, my rebuke against bigots would be a little less forceful.
My sister and me, Seoul, South Korea (2019)
When I arrived in Seoul, I came to an unexpected realization. Everyone looked like me, but I still felt like a foreigner. It wasn't only because I don't speak Korean. There was something much more visceral. It just didn't feel like home. And that's the inescapable reality all racial minorities face in the U.S. Although we are Americans at our core, others cannot see us without using a hyphen to connect us to an unfamiliar foreign land.
Minari is not a quintessential Korean-American immigrant story because the narrative does not sufficiently address racism. The Yi family did not face discrimination because they were an unthreatening oddity. The locals did not tell them to go back to China because the white Arkansas residents didn't think the Korean-Americans were taking away their jobs. It's a first-generation immigrant story that is too unique to represent the typical Korean-American experience. But it's an American story detailing the hopes of people seeking a better life.
Andrew’s Grade: B
