Continuously migrating: South Korean Man deported to Korea after 40 years later

How can someone continuously migrate from one country to another? It’s not considered nomadic if a person has situated themselves in a country for a long time and is forced to migrate to another country. Adam Crapser is one of the many examples of people who are forced to migrate continuously from one country to another. After living in the U.S. for about 40 years, he gets deported to South Korea. According to NPR and New York Times, he first came to the U.S. through international adoption when he was about 3 years old. It was during the Cold War era in which he was forced to migrate to a new country and new culture. He had to assimilate into the American identity, losing his South Korean identity. Now, he is being forced to migrate to another new country and new culture. Essentially, he needs to assimilate to South Korea, but he’s 41 years old and has a family. He considers himself to be an American. He even states that South Korea is “completely alien to him” but he is still forced to become a permanent foreigner in South Korea.

What is within here — a place the migrant will not be entitled to call his own.

Ranajit Guha wrote The Migrants Time for migrants like Adam Crapser. There is no real place to call his own. Adam Crapser is neither an American nor a South Korean. Even though he considers himself as an American, he can never claim an American identity because he does not own the documentations for his citizenship. He can never claim a South Korean identity because he has been disconnected from the language and the culture for 37 years.

[His past is] the question of an individual’s loss of his communal identity and his struggle to find another.”

Because of his past, he cannot clam any national identity. He must struggle to be accepted in a larger community and in the diasporic community.

Living in the U.S. for a long time created a connection with being American, even without documentation. But now, he must find connection with South Korea. At his age, it would be difficult to completely become fluent with the language. It does not seem like he has been exposed to the Korean culture for a long time, so it might take even longer for him to adjust to the cultural difference. According to NY Time, he’s come into terms with the deportation and was able to contact his South Korean mother and bought a travel’s guide book to read the Korean signs. What more can he do when he’s forced to leave the country? NY Times undermines the deportation problem and the problem of national identity by reporting his “positive attitude.” His story represents the problem for all migrants when they must try to be accepted by the larger community in order to claim that identity. For his case, it would be difficult to claim his South Korean identity because his fellow countrymen must also accept his into the larger community.

He must win recognition from his fellows in the host community by participating in the now of their everyday life.

For Adam Crapser, he must resituate himself in South Korea and gain recognition from his fellow countrymen to be accepted as a fellow South Korean. He must find a way to assimilate into South Korea while gaining acceptance within the larger community. From America, he assimilated into the society through language and culture, but he still appears like a foreigner. In the same way, he must assimilate into South Korean society through language and culture, but he will continue to feel like a permanent foreigner because more than half of his life was not spent in South Korea. It was spent in America which makes it even harder for him to leave the country.