The Foreign Nativist: Tracing Korean Immigrants’ Racial Consciousness in a “Christian Land”

This paper explores how religion played a central role in the understanding of US citizenship and racial categorizations during World War II, centering on Haan Kilsoo, a Korean immigrant who firmly supported a nativist viewpoint toward Japanese Americans. Drawing from public statements, correspondence between intelligence agencies, legal documents, news articles, and letters, this paper examines how Korean immigrants like Kilsoo claimed their loyalty to the States by drawing from the predominant idea of America as a “White Christian nation” in Korean immigrant communities. Korean immigrants’ understanding of race as intertwined with religious affiliation helped many to disassociate themselves from the broader racial category of “Asian,” particularly during a time in which Korean immigrants were negotiating between their racialization in the States and the colonization of their homeland by the Japanese empire.