Gender Boot Camp for Korean Immigrant Patriarchs

Abstract

This paper explores the “new father” conversion process undertaken by participants of the worldwide, South Korean–inspired Father School movement. Focusing on first-generation Korean immigrant men living in the United States, men pursue an alternative Western paradigm of fatherhood emphasizing an emotionally expressive and caring “new father” ideal at odds with the distant and domineering fatherhood style that traditionally characterizes much of this population. Based on the ethnographic study of multiday seminars and content analyses of movement rhetoric and men’s personal letters, I assess how immigrant fatherhood is reconstituted within the stew of intensive interaction and affective bonding. The gender conversion process undertaken by these men involves five core elements: (1) trying participation, (2) defining fatherhood models, (3) following organizational roles and guidelines, (4) confessing fatherhood transgressions, and (5) projecting new fatherhood. This study extends conversion theory by explicating the processual and time-specific nature of how these distant immigrant patriarchs learn to become expressive dads.