Despite a rich body of literature on the tole of ethnic reli~on in immigrant communities, there has been relatively little attention paid to the tole and impact of ethnic reli~~n on the second generation. This is due partly to the earlier dominance of the assimilationist paradigm, which, based mosdy on the experiences of the "oid" tum-of-the-century European immigrant groups, tended to postulate a second-generation rejection of reli~on and ethnicity. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Korean-American Chr/st/ans in Chicago, this study seeks to reexamine the tole of ethnic reli~on for the second generation in the context of a contempora~ non-white ethnic group.Contrary to earlier views, findings from Korean-American church-goers suggest that when ah ethnic group is faced with a strong sense of social mar~nalization believed to arise fvom its racial status, the ethnic church can play a dominant tole in the group's cluest for identity and sense of be/ong/ng. Th/s paper shows the ways in which the Korean ethnic &urch, more specifically the evangelical Protestant church, plays a tole in the construction and maintenance of second-generation Korean ethnic identity and boundary.Serving asa prima~ site of the cultural reproduction of the second generation, the Korean ethnic church supports the development of the group's defensive and often highly exclusive ethnic identity in two key ways; first, through a general institutional transmission of Korean culture and second, by the way a set of core traditional Korean values ate le~timized and sacralized through the# identification with conservative Christian morality and worldview. In demonstrating how ethnic religion can remain highly sa/ient for the second generation under certa/n situational contexts, this study illuminates the need to rethink the previous views regarding ethnic religion and the second generation, as weU as the nature of second-generation ethnicity.

Asian Americans have historically enjoyed one of the highest rates of intermarriage of any racial/ethnic group. By exploring the dynamics of interracial marriages among middle-class, professional Asian Americans in Chicago, this article examines what interracial marriages mean for these putative racial/ethnic “boundary crossers” and what they signify about assimilation, racial/ethnic identity, and redrawing of color boundaries in America. This article finds that for Asian Americans in this study, interracial marriage is far from an unproblematic indicator of assimilation; rather, it is a terrain in which complex subjective negotiations over ethnic/racial identities are waged over lifetimes. For both female and male Asian Americans, personal struggles over racial/ethnic identity are thrown into full relief when they begin the process of raising mixed-race children, which forces a reexamination of their own identities, and of those of their children. This article makes a distinctive contribution to the interrelationship of intermarriage, race, and ethnic identity development by comparing the views of Asian Americans and those of their non-Asian spouses regarding marital dynamics and children, which helps to further illuminate the uniqueness of the Asian American experience.

Methodological difficulties attendant to ethnographic fieldwork-such as gaining access, maintaining fieldwork relations, objectivity, and fieldwork stresses-are intensified for researchers working with "absolutist" religious group, groups that hold an exclusivist or totalistic definition of truth. Based on my fieldwork in a conservative South Korean evangelical community, I explore in this article two central and related methodological dilemmas pertaining to studying absolutist religious groups: identity negotiation and emotional management during fieldwork. Writing from my complex location as a feminist and a cultural/religious insider/outsider in relation to the South Korean evangelical community, I explore in particular the challenges posed by identity/role management in the field and its emotional dimensions, including the issue of the researcher's power and vulnerability, the quandary of "conformity," and the emotional costs of self-repression arising from the researcher's fundamental value conflicts with the group. I conclude with a reflection on the implications of these experiences for ethnographic methodology, most centrally, how we manage our emotional responses in the field, including "inappropriate" ones, and how we can relate them to the research process.Methodological difficulties attendant to ethnographic fieldwork are well known, but these difficulties are intensified in a number of ways for researchers working with religious groups that can be considered "absolutist," groups that hold to an exclusivist or totalistic

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Based on ethnographic research, this study investigates the meaning and impact of women's involvement in South Korean evangelicalism. While recent works addressing the "paradox" of women's participation in conservative religions have highlighted the significance of these religions as unexpected vehicles of gender empowerment and contestation, this study finds that the experiences and consequences of Korean evangelical women's religiosity are highly contradictory; although crucial in women's efforts to negotiate the injuries of the modern Confucian-patriarchal family, conversion, for many women, also signifies their effective redomestication to this family/gender regime, which helps maintain current gender arrangements. To address this tension, the article explores the meaning of religious submission in the Korean context, focusing on the motivations behind women's consent to patriarchy, which are rooted in women's contradictory desires regarding the family system and the ambivalent subjectivities that they evoke.A long with the recent surge of scholarly interest in religious fundamentalisms, scholars have begun to pay greater attention to the question of women's participation in contemporary traditionalist religious movements. Why are women, many of them well educated and middle class, becoming increasingly attracted to and supportive of religious groups that seem designed to perpetuate their subordination? The question of women's involvement in traditionalist religions is intriguing because it not only provokes a AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to thank Bob Antonio, Shirley Harkess, Cornell Fleischer, and the members of the University of Kansas gender seminar for their reading of the earlier drafts of this article. I am also grateful to Christine L. Williams and the several anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and constructive criticisms. Research for this project was funded by the USIA/IIE Fulbright Fellowship and the Korea Foundation.rethinking of the problems of secularization and the role of religion in the modern world but addresses some of the central issues related to gender: the question of women's engagement with contemporary patriarchy, the nature and dynamics of contemporary gender relations, and the ways in which women negotiate the challenges of modernity and social change.Recent studies of women and religious traditionalisms have advanced our understanding of this fascinating question in a number of ways. While illuminating the important connections between contemporary women's turn to religious traditionalism and the processes of modern social transformations across societies, scholars have moved the understanding of the effects and role of these religions in sophisticated new directions. By focusing, for instance, on the complexities inherent in the operations of religious patriarchy, these works have challenged conventional views of traditionalist religions as monolithic sources of oppression and of women as victims of male domination. By attending to matters of women's agency, as well a...