아시아계 미국문화를 활용한 비판적 다문화교육

Critical Multicultural Education through Asian American Literature: Jade Snow Wong's Fifth Chinese Daughter

Korea has become a demographically multicultural society with the increasing number of migrant workers, foreign brides, and their multicultural children. This article aims to demonstrate how Asian American Literature can be taught to better prepare Korean college students for a multicultural society. For this purpose, I share my experience of teaching Jade Snow Wong's autobiography, Fifth Chinese Daughter, which illustrates the paradigm shift from "race" to "ethnicity" in mid-twentieth-century America and subscribes to liberal multiculturalism. This article first discusses limitations of liberal multiculturalism in Wong's autobiography, criticizing its superficial representations of ethnic difference as well as its reluctance to address racial inequalities. In a roundabout way, the discussion explains my approach to Fifth Chinese Daughter and summarizes main issues discussed in the classroom. Students' responses written before, during, and after reading Wong's autobiography indicate that, by critically reading the text, students could identify with racial and ethnic minorities and gain a more critical and sophisticated perspective on institutionalized inequalities.