스파이와 모델 마이너리티를 넘어서: 『네이티브 스피커』와 『제스처 인생』에 나타난 디아스포라적 주체의 가능성

Abstract

Native Speaker and Gesture Life show a significant reflection of the second generation Korean immigrants on their identity as a Korean American after the 90s. Before that, Asian American texts had generally explored Asian American subjectivity within the scope of national ideology with the result of typical dichotomy of assimilation or dissimilation. Lee’s two texts show post-LA Riot Korean Americans’ differing perceptions of their subjectivity in the adopted nation by examining the symbolic system of national discourse that con/disjunctions differences into a collective body of nation. Lee’s texts, however, do not remain in the level of recognizing national discourse as a symbolic mechanism that produces minority identities. Rather they proceed to explore the possibility of positioning a new Korean American subjectivity: a diasporic one. Diaspora is a very promising space for an ethnic subject to imagine his subjectivity outside of an oppressive national ideology. When a subject enters diaspora, he undergoes two meaningful changes: recognition of his historical diasporic experiences as material presence that can never be simply denied in the molecular process of national ideology and the possibility of a cultural hybridity that may entertain ethnic differences without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.