Introverted Bear

I don't really know much about religion theology and religious identity formation, but this book was very informative. Most of the information was about Christians, especially Protestants. The chapters on Protestants, especially evangelists, focused on Korean religious identity formation. Most of it focuses on the idea that Koreans are minorities, and so they form their identities in a different way than the dominant group (which I am not convinced that they do form their identities in a different manner from the dominant group. I just think they have different cultural practices, but everyone goes through similar stages. Yes, even people of the dominant culture can be marginalized and realize they don't fit in. White people sometimes don't belong in the "dominant" culture. It's not just minorities who don't belong). There's one chapter on women, one chapter on psychology (which psychologists might take with some truth but it's otherwise outdated), and no chapter on class (because most Koreans are middle and upper class, according to the book). Most of the chapters explore the differences between first generation immigrant Koreans and second generation Korean Americans.

The chapters on Buddhism focused on the history of Buddhism in America rather than the individuals that practice Buddhism. I wanted to know more about Buddhist individuals rather than just a history, but a history was good too.

In both the Protestants' and Buddhists' cases, it was important for Koreans and Korean Americans to have an ethnic church so that they could form social bonds. The book explores this idea a good bit, especially through a male perspective. The authors claim that the male bias is due to Korean cultural ideals that males have power and women are the ones in the backgrounds raising families.

I suppose I am a bit bias since my view is coming from a white Catholic perspective, and I hate the idea of people going on missions to evangelize others; hence, I agreed more with the Korean Student Association's perspective than the Christian ministries' perspectives. I mostly read this book because I wanted to learn more about Korean culture. I think I learned more about the changes that occur when Koreans move to America; Korean culture and American culture come together to form a new culture, something in the middle yet neither Korean nor American. It was interesting to read about how Koreans and Korean Americans adapted to the changes. If you're interested in identity formation, this may be a good book for you.