By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Korea is on a long but unavoidable journey to becoming a multicultural society. To cope with a soaring influx of non-Koreans, the government has unveiled a series of unprecedented policies to support them. Civic groups have also run a variety of campaigns to lead them into the nation's mainstream.
But what they don't know is that many Korean citizens are still not ready to embrace them, mainly due to the largely shared Confucian belief among Koreans that ``We are homogeneous.''
The deep-rooted belief saw many international couples and their seemingly different children, as well as other ethnic minorities, become public bullying targets in the 1970s and 80s.
Korean-American football star Hines Ward, a wide receiver for the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers, cried when he was describing the discrimination he faced here when he was young during his visit to Seoul in 2006.
Even now, such discrimination lingers. Korean law bans mixed-blood men from serving in the military for no just reason, a measure which deprives them of being recognized as ``really'' Korean.
A scholar versed in multiculturalism stressed that the media should play a key role in removing such discriminatory practices and boost public awareness that foreigners are our neighbors.
``The media has largely influenced public awareness of foreigners because Koreans usually place a great deal of confidence in what the media says,'' Lee Hye-kyung, a professor at Pai Chai University's department of sociology and media information, told The Korea Times, Friday. ``Just a decade ago, media described ethnic minorities as those living in miserable conditions, just scraping by with lousy jobs, largely worsening their image. But it's not the case any longer.''
She said ethnic minorities are now depicted as diligent and tough-minded people who strive to become part of the nation's mainstream, overcoming social and cultural disadvantages. ``It has led Korean people to become positive about them,'' Lee said.
Lee is to serve as the president of the Korea International Migration Association (KIMA) starting next January. KIMA was established last year to meet growing demand for a migration-specialized academic institute. It holds a partnership with the Asia Pacific Migration Research Network, an international migration research institute in Australia.
Lee said that in the long run the government's blueprint for building a ``migration state'' was laid out properly, and predicted racial segregation, which has triggered immense social discord in some Western countries, as unlikely to occur here.
But she raised the necessity of upgrading current migration policies, claiming they are, in many cases, makeshift and shortsighted.
``Inter-ministerial cooperation is necessary for successful migration policies. In many cases, however, each ministry seeks its own policies with little teamwork with concerned parties,'' she said. ``Policies should be proactive and built upon long-term prospects on the issue, but they are passive and come after something wrong happens.''
In a recent forum hosted by UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture, Prof. Han Geon-soo of Kangwon National University also claimed competition between government ministries to take political leadership over social transformation had marred migration policies.
Lee pointed out zigzag policies on foreign laborers as an example of the government's carelessness in setting migration policies.
To efficiently utilize foreign workers, the government began to ``import'' laborers from developing Asian countries beginning 1993. They were allowed to learn advanced technologies at Korean firms in exchange for contributing to production. A new policy dubbed the ``Work Permit Program'' made its debut here in 2004 to replace the previous system, as the latter resulted in an increasing number of foreign workers overstaying their visas.
To secure a more reliable workforce, the government began to give the right to work here to ethnic Koreans from China last year.
``The nation's labor policy of highly depending on imported workers combined with loosened regulations resulted in eight out of 10 foreign workers here overstaying their visas back in the 1990s. The ratio is now much lower thanks to the government's efforts. But during the procedure, we were stigmatized as a country with poor and inconsistent immigration policies,'' she said.
KIMA plans to host a joint international conference with migration associations in Japan and Taiwan next year ㅡ countries whose cultural background and migration history is similar to ours ㅡ to share knowledge and anticipate what is going to happen. It also seeks to form a partnership with migration research institutes in multicultural countries, including the United States, Canada and European countries.