The Trans-Pacific Korean Wave and Korean Americans

This book examines the Korean Wave’s transnational flows, especially its trans-Pacific journey to the U.S., its transformation en route and Korean Americans’ versatile, multi-layered involvement in these processes.

Through a comparative analysis of its diverse local receptions both in East Asia (China, Taiwan and Japan) and the U.S., this book investigates the ways in which the trajectories of the Korean Wave have been shaped by its dynamic interactions with local conditions in a changing global environment. After a brief discussion about the early stage of the Korean Wave in Asia, the book then goes on to focus on Korean pop culture’s flows to the U.S. revolving around its genealogy connected with Korean immigration to the country, its growing integration into the country’s broader cultural landscape and variety of local receptions, particularly along ethnic/racial lines.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic data, this book sheds new light on Korean Americans’ involvement in the Korean Wave phenomenon and will appeal to students and scholars of Korean culture, the Korean diaspora, Asian American studies and popular culture and media studies more generally.