Son paper accepted in Discourse and Society

In Seo Son's paper has been accepted in Discourse and Society.

The title of the paper is "Partly Colored or Almost White?: Racial Intermediacy and Identificational Ambivalence of Grown Children of Korean Immigrants." It is scheduled for publication in DISCOURSE & SOCIETY 25(6)  in November, 2014.

The abstract is as follows;

Prior research suggests that Asian Americans fall between whites and African Americans in the American racial stratification system. However, scholars know relatively little about how this position shapes Asian American’s understandings of racial discrimination. This article examines the discourses surrounding individual experiences with racism among Korean Americans and the association between discourses and Korean Americans’ intermediate race position. Drawing upon 69 in-depth interviews with 1.5- and 2nd-generation Korean Americans, I identify three discursive subgroups: honorary whites, racial intermediaries, and racial progressives. The tendency to deny or minimize rather than acknowledging the significance of experienced racism characterizes the three groups. A critical discourse analysis reveals that the largest subgroup employs discourse minimizing racism, reflecting the respondents’ ambivalent racial identification. These respondents do not consider themselves part of a minority, yet say they are not white. Findings suggest that the Korean Americans’ racial ambivalence is closely associated with racial intermediacy.