인종·종족적 이미지의 내부적 생산과 유통에 대한 연구: 뉴욕 한인사회의 법률서비스 시장을 중심으로

This article examines the course and ways through which racial, ethnic characteristics are produced and circulated in the forms of the images of “successful Korean Americans” and “recent immigrants” in the New York Korean community in the early 2000s. The Korean community discourses produce and circulate various and conflicting images of Korean American lawyers while the lawyers'talk creates the negative images of their immigrant clients. Despite the common understanding of the legal profession as a successful career, Korean ethnic lawyers are often negatively viewed as incapable compared to “American” lawyers. In fact, conflicting and contradictory images of Korean ethnic lawyers reflect the coexistence of two different community discourses: the strengthening of Korean ethnic solidarity and the achievement of Americanization as a way of social mobility. These community discourses reinscribe the racial, ethnic marking of Korean American lawyers by imposing two incompatible demands on them. In contrast, the lawyers' talk formulates the images of Korean immigrants as undermining Korean legal professionals' integrity and as cultural others to American society. The lawyers try to socially and psychologically distance themselves from coethnic immigrants to some degree. However, they cannot ignore the fact that their main clientele consist of coethnic immigrants. The diverse and disparate images of Korean ethnics show that the New York Korean community is an ethnic space restricted by structural barriers such as race, immigration and the stratified professional service market.