Over the years, North Korean citizens have sought refuge in South Korea. Upon arrival, however, they find another kind of hell rather than a Promised Land: state-designated stereotyping mires their identities and lives in uncertainty, causing maladjustment and problematizing their integration into South Korean society. This is the crux of Chung’s article; this paper will further focus on how arbitrary concepts of nationhood and crime help obstruct the assimilation of North Koreans, because conditions are unlikely to change. Unlike others in the Korean diaspora, North Koreans are considered legal citizens in the South. Yet they have been labelled system selective migrants, escapees, and New Settlers, etc.; all these terms still define them as Other to South Koreans. They are forever categorised as outsiders— regardless of the cultural modes, socioeconomic aspirations, and linguistic rituals they perform in tandem with the imagined South Korean community.
Arguably, these arbitrary definitions of their identity will persist over time. Just as violence mainly exists in a dichotomy with peace, South Korea too cannot exist without the North. Though the plight for unification is prioritised, the erasure of borders at the 38th parallel would …show more content…
Crime, violence, and protest are not fixed notions: they are constantly deconstructed and reconstructed by those in power. Treason by North Koreans is not conceptualised as crime in this context, but as an act that elevates the South over North. Consequently, the victims become icons of this struggle of legitimate nation-statehood. This will continue until these identities have outlived the South Korean state’s use. In this sense, while the government implemented myriad policies and programmes to alleviate the circumstances of North Koreans border crossers, forming their identities as such remains as violence against