『해럴드와 쿠마』 시리즈를 통해 바라본 신세대 아시아계 미국 젊은이들의 성장

The adventures of the New Second Generation of Asian Americans in Harold and Kumar

Asian American youth culture has been marginalized in Asian American studies due to the fact that the immigrant generation still makes up the majority of the communities, and have a great impact on the succeeding generation. However, as new generations come of age, they are becoming visible groups in American society included a mainstream popular culture. In this sense the casting of two Asian American actors, John Cho (ethnically Korean) and Karl Penn (ethnically Indian) in leading roles in the successful Hollywood comedy film series "Harold and Kumar" reflects this trend. Harold and Kumar play the children of post-1965 immigrants, and they have some distinctive characteristics that differ from the second generation of the 1960s and 1970 who grew up in segregated urban ethnic enclaves. By contrast, Harold and Kumar are from an affluent middle-class suburbia and enjoy the diversity of American culture. Furthermore, under a social system that is less discriminative against ethnic/racial minorities, the characters have more opportunities to achieve social mobility in education and professionally. This article focuses on this new second generation of Asian Americans by examining the two main characters, Harold and Kumar, who can be perceived as representing this group. Harold and Kumar has been celebrated for breaking various stereotypes of Asian Americans in mainstream Hollywood by portraying two Asian American young men as just regular Americans. There are some critics however, who claim that the characters are still presented as perpetual foreigners. Nonetheless, this article goes beyond discussions of the authenticity of the characters, Harold and Kumar, as representative of Asian American youth. Instead, the focus is on how the characters negotiate the ethnic/racial collective identities assigned to them by social stereotypes with their own individual identities in the diverse and ridiculous adventures they encounter throughout their films. In the process, Harold and Kumar show that for new generations, their ethnic/racial appearance is not something they are compelled to choose between strictly adhering to or abandoning, but rather something that can encourage their individualism and assist them in their desire to live as Americans.