Family and Kinship

My aunt, Yong-In Kim, was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1960 and immigrated to the United States in 1983. Public schools in Korea have become lenient over time, but historically, they have been extremely strict and require students to wear uniforms, maintain their hair short and neatly groomed, and teachers would even punish troublemakers by spanking them. Koreans also place high emphasis on respecting elders, and interactions with them are distinguished through formal speech. At the same time, however, individuals who meet for the first time even have to speak to their counterparts of the same age through formal speech, until they feel comfortable and get to know each other before mutually consenting to speak informally. In addition, my aunt grew up as a very strict and devout Catholic, and her family’s piety was only further amplified when her two brothers became priests.
I was very comfortable conducting the interview because I have a fairly close relationship with my aunt. This made the interview an easy process since she was able to divulge any kind of information. At the same time, it affected my role as an anthropologist since I already had prior knowledge of her family background. It would have been a different story if I interviewed someone unrelated to me because I would probably discover parts of their history and cultural/ethnic background that I never knew before. It would eliminate bias on my own thoughts and feelings, and perhaps they would feel uncomfortable sharing or revealing certain information.
The only relative that lives in America is my aunt on my mom’s side. They are extremely close and see each other or at least communicate everyday. Their brothers are still in Korea and only talk to them on special occasions. However, my uncles visit each other frequently and spend a lot of time together at church functions since they share the same profession. There is a trend toward small families since my uncles are both priests and therefore celibate. The only family on my mom’s side is ours and my aunt’s family with only three children. On the other hand, my dad has five brothers and one sister, and nuclear families make up each household. Since all his siblings live close to their mother in Korea, they are very close and see each other often. However, because of the distance, my dad only keeps in contact with them a few times a year. On both my mom and dad’s side, there are no ethnic differences, although I am sure there would be a significant cultural and language barrier if they were to exist. There is no specific emphasis on maternal or paternal lines. Their general attitudes toward older and younger individuals in the family align with the perspective of their country. For example, they expect those that are younger to call elders by their appropriate titles that indicate “older brother” or “older sister,” instead of simply their names, in addition to formalized speech.
I only know my aunt’s family from my mom’s side really well since they are the only ones living in America, and therefore I socialize more with them than the relatives on my dad’s side. There is also less of a cultural and language barrier since they can speak English and have lived in America for most of their lives. On my mom’s side, I think there is a balance in which members influence decisions since my uncles are priest and the family in general has grown up with such conservatism. Cooperation and compromise are key in settling down to decisions. In contrast, I believe my dad’s family to be more strongly patrilineal since it is made up largely of men. The husbands influence decision-making, at least when it comes to economical issues, and I think this is also due to the fact that most of the women do not work. In both my mom and dad’s side, family members who marry into the family are not treated any differently because they hold Christian values to love and respect everyone equally. There are no differences in attitudes based upon gender on my mom’s side, but there are on my dad’s side because of its patrilineality. I feel like the men are more entitled to such power because they are the breadwinners. However, it is interesting to see this since I mentioned before that they share Christian morals to treat members the same. Through this exercise, I’ve learned that my family has been significantly influenced by their social, cultural, and ethnic background. Much of my parents’ conservatism is a reflection of their individual family values while practicing Catholicism and living in Korea. It shapes the person I am today because as an American citizen, I have grown up in a completely different environment and generation in which I became socialized through education and the media to stray away from the ideas that were strictly enforced by my parents.