Sociologist Chung contributes centrally to the signature theme on immigration by her examination of the incorporation of 1.5 and 2nd generation Asians in the US. She has completed her book, Legacies of Struggle: Cooperation and Conflict in Korean American Politics, to be published in 2007 by Stanford University Press. Using ethnographic fieldwork, case studies and interviews, Chung challenges the conventional notion that generational turnover and upward mobility necessarily lead to the disintegration of ethnicity as a meaningful basis for political identity among 1.5/ 2nd generation Korean Americans. Even though LA’s Koreatown is fractured by intergenerational conflict, class polarization, and suburban flight, the book shows how Korean-American organizations are able to cultivate ethnic political solidarity based on the centralized resources and institutional infrastructures of the enclave. The effects of resource inequality, instead of undermining ethnic political solidarity, have led to the increasing diversification and specialization of ethnic organizational structures. As part of a research team headed by Min Zhou (UCLA), Chung has also explored the impact of ethnic organizational structures on academic achievement and identity formation among immigrant youth in the Koreatown, Chinatown, and Pico-Union neighborhoods of Los Angeles. One of the key findings of this project is that while institutional development may benefit neighborhood youth to some degree, the utility of organizational capital may vary depending on the national origin, social status, and network embeddedness of its beneficiaries.
None.
Dr. Chung is currently working on a new research study that explores the ways in which 1.5 and 2nd generation sons and daughters of Korean and Chinese immigrants negotiate their unequal family roles and adult responsibilities while growing up and how this results in different decisions about ethnicity and culture in their adult lives. In addition, she is beginning work on another project that explores the role of family and kinship networks in shaping the processes of racial/ethnic identity formation among foreign-born and native-born South Asian Americans in New York.
In addition to her role in the signature theme on immigration, Chung’s research contributes to the group on the lifecourse, especially with respect to adolescents and young adults. She brings expertise in qualitative methods to CSDA, as well as her cross-disciplinary interests within the field of population studies.
Chung’s research has been promoted by her receipt of a CSDA Junior Fellows Award, which she used to collect interview data on the dynamics of gender, family, and ethnicity among children of Asian immigrant families in the NY metropolitan area. She has also drawn on the assistance of the Developmental Core for proposal preparation.