이창래의 『원어민』에 나타난 다문화주의의 한계

Abstract

This paper aims to note the limits of the American multiculturalism and the ethnocultural conflicts of Korean American immigrants who struggle with confused identities in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker. Multiculturalism is a significant critical concept as it encompasses the diversity and hybridity of ethnic groups and their culture without any bias in order to establish an entirely integrated national community. In Native Speaker, however, the issues of multiculturalim as to “language right” or “political representation” are problematic since those issues tend to force the ethnic group or immigrant community to assimilate into the rules of majority or remain silent in order not to be excluded. Despite their social integration models, the reality is that the collision and the conflict among multiple ethnic groups in many different parts of the country remain because the nation does not consider sharing “a cultural membership”, Native Speaker addresses the cultural issues related to the lack of cultural membership among the characters but simultaneously suggests the adjustment of their emotional confrontation in an attempt to compromise each other to produce the ideal multicultural society. Hence, multicultural reading of Native Speaker would urge the world to realize that a flexible perspective of others' cultures will provide membership in the world just like national citizenship.