By Kim Se-jeong
Contributing Writer
WASHINGTON _ A professor said the Virginia shooting massacre reveals the weakness of the Asian, including Korean, community in the United States.
In an interview with The Korea Times, Kim Dae-Young, assistant professor at the Department of Sociology and Asian American Study Program at University of Maryland, pointed out that the shortcomings and problems within Asian American communities are not adequately addressed.
However, it is not just the life of his family as immigrants upon which all the blame should be thrown, he said.
The professor noted many immigrants and their descendents suffer emotional problems, which isn't uncommon.
And if he was brought up in Korea, the same thing could have happened. It was just the extreme case of an individual, who accumulated great anger within himself, and he expressed it by harming others, he said.
Below is the entire manuscript of the interview.
What caused such a senseless act from this Korean American student?
Perhaps what may have happened was due to a young man suffering from severe isolation and depression. And this does not mean that everyone who undergoes depression and isolation is bound to act in such way. In fact, the majority do overcome feelings of alienation and deprivation. But at the same time, there may be a small minority that may not be able to cope and either harm themselves (suicide) or harm others. Perhaps, this is a strong lesson to integrate better those that do
need help. Because they ultimately affect all of us.
Does this incident reflect problems of Korean immigrant families in America. Is there any connection? If so, what aspect of immigrant life, especially those from Korea, would have caused his extreme depression and hatred toward society?
If we are too preoccupied in being seen as successful, hardworking, and as model citizens, there is a tendency to ignore any shortcomings, problems and failures. In some ways, the Asian American community (also the Korean American community) is seen as problem free or the problems that they face are deemed insignificant or minor.
If he were brought up in Korea or in a different environment, would the case be different?
In the case of this student, it may have not mattered where he grew up. If he had grown up in Korea, with the right social support from family and relatives, where people may have been rooted in a local place, without language barriers and culture shock (only initially), he would not have been as isolated.
Possibly his parents may not need to have worked as hard and could have attended to him, paying more attention to his social skills. They could have helped him develop social skills that would befriend and not remain totally within himself.
But he may not have had such opportunities in Korea either. Korea has become more mobile, people live as nuclear families, apartment buildings are anonymous, in which case the kind of isolation and lack of social skills would have led to his getting equally bullied and ostracized in school settings.
This would mean he could have turned inward (keeping him to himself) in Korea as well.
In other words, in America, his family may have not been well integrated within the community or the church, keeping him pretty isolated, again to himself.
His parents likely worked long hours to survive.
That likely affected their ability to interact and be involved in his development.
Again as I stated above, many immigrant children undergo such an experience, but few turn out in such a way.
However, there will be a minority that needs help in better integrating with their family, and with the school and church they attend, etc.
In this student's case, he seems to have been unable to connect with other Korean
Americans or non-Korean peers.
We don't know much about his experience in junior high school and high schools so this is a lot of speculation. To fill the void in his social life, it is possible that he filled them with video games, Internet, movies, TV, music, etc.
In our modern, fast paced society, feelings of alienation and lack of connectedness are common.
Particularly, all these forms of popular culture tend to glorify violence and these may affect his psyche. Extreme feelings of isolation and rejection may have also led to depression.
How can it prevented? And what lessons can we draw from this incident?
It's hard to say. But at the minimum, our families need to be more attentive to our children's mental well-being. Our schools should be attentive to how shy, introverted (and `loner’) students are and make sure they are not bullied or feel rejected.
These students should be provided counseling. Through various programs, these students should find ways to integrate into the student body.
This probably will take the effort of teachers, students, counselors, etc. Our churches could also pay more attention to those who are less well integrated, reaching out to them. Our neighbors could also be more active.
Obviously in a fast-paced modern society, these things may be difficult to achieve. In some ways, too much social control (from neighbors, parents, school) may be too restricting.
This is reminiscent of old villages where everyone knew everyone and was involved in his or her affairs. But on the other
extreme, where there is little or no social control, those who need our help may not be well integrated into the community.
There were some studies on 1st and 2nd-generation Vietnamese in America which showed that those who did better in school were the children whose parents and the children themselves were better integrated into the Vietnamese community (more social control, children upholding those cultural norms). Parents (and their children) who were not well integrated into the community, tended to become more acculturated, leading to disjuncture between parental authority and peer influence.