Marginalized “Majority”: The Case of Korean American Scientists After the Second World War

Across science departments in universities and scientific research institutions in the United States, Asian and Asian American students, faculty, and researchers are usually not regarded as minorities. Regardless of the actual number, the general perception is that Asian Americans are overrepresented in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. Asian American scientists are often portrayed in contradictory ways, oscillating between model minority and national threat to American society, pitted against Black and Hispanic communities by the dominant culture, and regarded as a majority yet marginalized. Immigrants, in particular, amplified the prestige and peril associated with science in the United States and their home country. How did the scientists navigate the situation as they transformed from foreigners to American citizens? I discuss such a case through the life trajectory of Lee (1935-1977) from the periphery to the center of elementary particle physics in the geographical, sociocultural, and intellectual sense. Ample patronage for science and the rise of the prestige of science in the United States facilitated the transnational exchanges of persons and knowledge, while the changing immigration acts in the United States during the Cold War enabled Lee to become a naturalized citizen. In conjunction with these, I also examine the role of Korea’s restrictive policies and sociocultural norms in transforming Korean students into Korean Americans. I argue that naturalized intellectual elites such as Lee shaped Korea’s modernization and education policies to varying degrees, further exacerbating the "model minority" stereotyping in the United States and their home country.