Wen-hsin Yeh, the editor of this book, skillfully brings together seven chapters that examine Korean diasporic communities across time (the nineteenth century to the present) and space (from Sino-Korean borderlands to Japan and then further to the United States). In her well-crafted introduction, Yeh discusses the tension between the two pillars of Korean modernity since the late nineteenth century: the rise of ethnic nationalism and the staggering increase in the Korean diasporic population under colonial and neocolonial conditions. Whereas prior studies focused more on the Korean diaspora's role in engendering and rejuvenating Korean ethnic nationalism, Yeh argues that this book examines “Korean mobility, especially in connection with the formation of Korean subjectivity from the nonpeninsular perspectives of movement and mobility” (p. 6). The chapters in this volume do exactly that. This volume is about Korean diasporic experiences and subjectivities that have not been readily subsumed under the hegemonic Korean nationalist...
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