Biography

Rachel Haejin Lim is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at California State University, Sacramento. A two-time Fulbright Scholar to South Korea and México, Dr. Lim writes and teaches on Korean diasporas in the Américas, Asian American and Asian diasporic histories, comparative and relational racial formations in the United States and México, and transnational migrations in global perspective. Her writing has appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed and public outlets, including Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, Journal of Asian American Studies, and The Washington Post.

 

Courses That I Teach

• ETHN 14: Introduction to Asian American Studies
• ETHN 110: Asian American Experience
• ETHN 114: Asian Americans & Globalization

Peer-Reviewed Publications

“Anti-Asian Racism in Latin America.” Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies. Edited by Ben Vinson III. Published March 2023. Co-authored with Jessica A. Fernández de Lara Harada. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0277

“Experiencias de racialización de las inmigraciones coreanas en Estados Unidos.” In “Procesos migratorios como configuración de la Tercer Corea.” Special issue, Ichan Tecolotl 33, no. 356 (January 2022). https://ichan.ciesas.edu.mx/experiencias-de-racializacion-de-las-inmigraciones-coreanas-en-estados-unidos/.

 “Ephemeral Nations: Between History and Diaspora in Kim Young-ha’s Black Flower.” Verge: Studies in Global Asias 7, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 197-219. DOI: 10.5749/vergstudglobasia.7.1.0197

 “Racial Transmittances: Hemispheric Viralities of Anti-Asian Racism and Resistance in Mexico.” Journal of Asian American Studies 23, no. 3 (October 2020): 440-458. DOI: 10.1353/jaas.2020.0034

Other Publications

Review of Jonathan Tran, Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism, in Sociology of Religion 83, no. 3 (Autumn 2022): 410-411.

Review of Jihye Kim, From Sweatshop to Fashion Shop: Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the Argentine Garment Industry, in Journal of Asian Studies 81, no. 3 (Autumn 2022): 593-594.

“The Jeep Cherokee Is Not a Tribute to Indians. Change the Name.” Co-authored with Sonia Katyal and Angela Riley. The Washington Post (March 7, 2021).

Review of Aisha Beliso-De Jesús, Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion, in Qui Parle 26, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2017): 219-229.

Major Research Projects

Itinerant Belonging: Korean Hemispheric Migration to and from Mexico

Since 1905, when the first Korean migrants arrived in Mexico as contract laborers to the henequén haciendas of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico has been a crossroads for thousands of Korean migrants moving across disparate sites in the Américas, including Cuba, Argentina, and the United States. The first book-length study in English to examine this understudied community, Itinerant Belonging utilizes a broader hemispheric perspective to trace Korean diasporic migrations across the Américas. Due to a hemispheric history of immigration exclusion, racial violence, and restrictive citizenship laws, serial migration has been a longstanding pattern among diasporic Asian groups in the Américas. Yet these temporary, transient, and transit migrations are obscured by immigration histories that presume assimilation into one national polity or transnational studies that emphasize the binational relationship between homeland and settlement country. In contrast, Itinerant Belonging centers the experience of mobility to argue that serial migration—and a history of racialized exclusion—have shaped the contours of Asian belonging across a broader cartography of the hemispheric Américas. 

Taekwondo Immigrants: Race, Gender, and Violence in Cold War America

This project charts the remarkable rise of the Korean martial art taekwondo, from its post-Korean War roots in military training programs to its global recognition as an Olympic sport and cherished pasttime for millions of people around the world. Based on archival documents and oral history interviews, this project shows how Korean immigrants were critical to this transformation. Taekwondo immigrants conceptualized taekwondo as a unique artifact of Korean heritage and culture that deserved global recognition. They also presented taekwondo as a nonviolent art of self-defense that was uniquely suited for pedagogical and participatory consumption by ordinary people, especially women and children.  Taekwondo, I argue, illuminates the transnational cultural circuits of U.S. empire that catalyzed Korean migration to the United States, transformed militarized migrants into American Dream immigrants, and shaped the global rise of Korean popular culture.