What This Series is About

This series explores the diverse array of experiences among Asian American/Canadian expats and nomads. The demographic of people I’m specifically referring to are members of the Asian diaspora who grew up in North America because they or their parents or previous generations were immigrants. After growing up in North America, these Asian folks later live elsewhere and become “expatriates.” Some may be long-term travelers and nomads who move from one country to another. Others may be expats for some time in one location and then return to their home country.

The narratives and images we have of expats are overwhelmingly white. When I look at FeedSpot’s list of the top 70 expat influencers, there are very few who identify as BIPOC. It’s hard to say how many BIPOC or Asian expats there actually are. There aren’t a lot of reliable statistics about American expats. From my research, the most trustworthy estimate is from The Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO), whose updated figure was 5.4 million as of 2023. They don’t break this figure down further to look at more specific demographics so it’s not clear how many of these expats identify as Asian American. In my experience of traveling and being an expat, I’ve learned that expats are not a monolith. They are in fact a quite diverse, multi-racial, multi-ethnic group.

An Interesting Subgroup of Asian American Expats: The Reverse Immigrants

There is a growing trend of Asian Americans moving back to the Asian country their parents are from. People do this for various reasons, including economic opportunities, a desire to connect with family/culture/language, and a growing wariness of anti-Asian racism and violence in the US. Among older Asians, there is a desire to spend the remaining years of life in the country of one’s childhood and in community with relatives and friends.

This trend of reverse immigration is difficult to generalize across Asian ethnic groups and generations. Being able to relocate to an Asian country from the US may require professional opportunities and financial resources that are not realistic for many members of the Asian diaspora. Some people may lack the education to pursue international jobs. Some people may jeopardize their legal status in the US by leaving the country for extended periods of time. In the US, the “Myth of the Model Minority” is entangled with other racial stereotypes about Asians. This myth and movies like Crazy Rich Asians would have us believe that Asians are successful and wealthy. The reality of Asians’ lived experiences is not so rosy. For instance, 1 in 7 Asians are undocumented. High income and educational attainment are more typical in certain Asian ethnic groups than in others. Pew Research Center describes Asian Americans as the “most economically divided racial group in America,” with some groups earning median incomes in the 6 figures while other groups earn a median income well below that of the average American.

All this is to say that being able to retire comfortably in a wealthy Asian country such as Korea may require resources that come with enormous economic and social privilege. Below is a graph from a CNN article about the “reverse migration” phenomenon among Korean Americans. As you can see, between 2005 and 2020, the number of Koreans moving back to South Korea has increased a little more than twofold. Children of the Asian diaspora have always spent time in the Asian countries of their family’s origin. While visits across the Pacific Ocean have always been common, it’s been less common that as adults, first and second generation Asian Americans choose to live in Asia for a few to several years or for some, even permanently. 

The pull towards Asia can be strong for some Asian Americans, particularly if they have the education and skills to find lucrative or career-building work there. According to a Fast Company article about Asian children of immigrants finding career opportunities in Asia,

“For many Asian Americans, living and working in Asia can also be inextricably linked to a desire to spend time in their parents’ hometown or get reacquainted with their mother tongue.”

My mother once commented to me that she had no idea South Korea would be the gleaming developed country that it is today. I think this sentiment is shared by many older immigrants who find that the country they left and the country they visit today are worlds apart. Rapid economic development in countries like South Korea and Vietnam means that for Asian Americans, they offer a high quality of life due to urban comforts and low crime.

In addition to opportunities and the desire to connect to one’s roots, there’s the thorny experience of being an Asian person in the US. In a previous post in this series, I wrote about my relief at being racially anonymous in Japan. Understandably, many Asian American expats in Asia have commented on the shock of blending in. As one writer who moved to Vietnam suggests,

“For the first time in more than 20 years, I will no longer have to explain where I’m from — nobody will ask.”

What’s striking about the stories of Asian American expats who are moving to Asia now is that anti-Asian violence and racism seem to be cited more frequently as factors considered in deciding to go back to Asia. The researcher studying the reverse migration trend among Korean Americans noted that more and more, the participants surveyed indicate that growing anti-Asian sentiment in the US is a factor contributing to their decision to move to Asia. According to the Pew Research Center, 9 in 10 Asian Americans feel they have experienced anti-Asian racism and/or discrimination. In addition, the same report found that 63% of Asian Americans surveyed felt that too little attention was paid to racial issues concerning Asians in the U.S. The Asian American experience is maddening in this way: treated like a perpetual foreigner without the acknowledgement that such treatment is happening.

No Place Like Home

My heart fills with the joy of recognition and familiarity when I am in Korea. It wasn’t always this way. It’s been an evolving relationship. I remember being a 14 year old in Korea and being told everything that was wrong with me in an oddly friendly tone by my relatives. Comments ran the gamut from “Why are you so bad at math?” to “Save up your money for plastic surgery.” Ah, the warm embrace of the motherland. 

The pace of social change in Korea is rapid. Every time I go back, I’m struck by the more progressive attitudes toward things that used to be so taboo in Korea, such as veganism, being child-free, not marrying, flexibility in gender roles, etc. I feel an odd mixture of relief and anxiety about these changes. My relief says, “Okay, I can be more myself here.” My anxiety says, “What else will change? And then what will be left of Korea?”

So going back to Korea for some gyopos, as we’re called, is not necessarily a straightforward experience. The feeling of belonging we are looking for may not be found in Korea because we are not Korean Korean. As one Korean American expat put it,

“There’s a recognition that either way, it’s going to be very hard for you to ever feel whole,” he said. “There’s something that yearns for the other world, because when you see enough of both, you ultimately understand the pros and cons of all the worlds you have occupied.”

Jeong is a feeling of love, sympathy, attachment. Jeong is an unspoken experience. It’s in the body. Even the most itinerant kind of Korean can feel jeong when she gets off the airport bus from Incheon and checks into her shabby Airbnb near Namsan. I feel jeong in the air and it emanates from my own heart when I am in Korea. It bouys me up when I find myself struggling to find the right word in Korean or wondering if I overpaid for slippers at the market. I think what I’ve learned over my trips to Korea is that I choose to feel belonging in the places that make me feel alive. Korea definitely makes me feel alive in ways I can’t explain but know.

Final Questions: Asian American Going Back to Asia

If you had the resources and the opportunity, what would you do to protect your mental health? To enhance your feeling of safety? Would you move to a place that allowed you to forget that when people look at you, what they see is your race and the “other”? Would you have the courage to shift from internalized self-hatred to self-discovery? Would you dare take this leap even when no one else you know is doing the same thing? Would you do it knowing that it won’t be perfect, that there is no “perfect” place for you?

After so many years of not belonging, can you exist in anonymity? Can you disappear into a crowd of faces that look like you? Is it disappearance or being woven in?