A Step From Heaven was one of the most interesting books I have read in awhile. It was a good read, especially while comparing the events in the book to Dr. Kang's article on Korean-Immigrant Parents. The two works worked together nicely to portray an image of Korean-Immigrant parents, and their outlook on their American-born children's identity.
After reading A Step From Heaven, I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that we were immersed in Young Ju's life from a young age. It was neat to see her development as an American, as well as an English speaker. I just really loved how the writing style developed and became more comprehensible throughout the book's entirety.
When reading this book, I kept on looking back to last week's talks on language identities. It seemed in this book, Young Ju had various identities. She had the narrative of not only a Korean adapting to American society, but a Korean woman. It was interesting to see how this narrative was both inhibited and facilitated through her mother and father's view of gender roles. As I kept reading, I also noticed how easy it was to forget about Joon, who was also living a very interesting narrative. He was a male who was growing up with his Father's standards (being seen as a more useful human, with more capability) and feeling inferior to his sister who was getting better grades. While we only see into his life a few times throughout the book, we see that he is going through some turmoil, especially in his later years.
After reading Dr. Kang's article, there seems to be some linkages to An Na's novel. The article looks at what drives a parent to maintain their child's mother tongue. Three of the motivating factors are parent experiences with language barriers , socioeconomic opportunities, and, most prevalent in A Step From Heaven, language as an identity marker.
Throughout the book, I did not pick up on much explicit maintenance of the home language through Young Ju. It seemed that she fluently spoke with her parents, mainly in Korean. Her and Joon spoke Korean in the household. This can largely relate to the language barrier having an effect on speaking Korean in the household. Both Uhmma and Apa have a hard time speaking English. We rarely hear them speak throughout the book. By stressing Korean in the household, both Joon and Young Ju have to communicate through Korean.
Throughout the book, the Korean identity often comes up. It may not necessarily come up in terms of language, but there are numerous events where both Apa and Uhmma feel that American culture is infringing on Young Ju's Korean identity. Apa is definitely more radical in his thinking, believing that Young Ju cannot be friends with an American for fear of losing cultural Korean values. We constantly see American values being juxtaposed with Korean values, especially in the realms of education, as well as social obligations (The Parks living with another family until they establish themselves, Young Ju borrowing money from Amanda). The parents certainly stress the importance of staying true to this perceived Korean identity.
Questions for Dr. Kang:
1. Since the study in the article is largely based around parents with careers in higher education, do you think there would be differences in development and maintenance by parents without as particular of an education? If so, how much? I know you touched upon this study belonging to a certain socio-ecomonic status, so would educational identity factor into that?
2. How do you practice maintenance and development of Korean with your child?
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