#008 Politics: Language, Law, and Multiculturalism with Jasmine Lee

Jasmine Lee came to South Korea in the 1990s. Here she talks of her early experiences with South Korean culture, people, and language. This leads to ideas of multiculturalism, family, identity, and nationalism. Jasmine became a nationalized Korean but still found trouble in terms of acceptance despite speaking the language fluently and having a Korean passport. After a successful television and media career, she made her way into politics and became the first non-ethnic Korean lawmaker in the national assembly. She worked first with the ruling conservative party and then more recently the Justice Party. Despite her efforts, she feels a lot of government efforts and policies were simply adopted because they were trendy rather than geared towards long-term sustainable success. She also sees a lot of stagnation and hesitancy in adopting policies to safeguard the lives of minorities in Korea because it’s not politically expedient and the main parties are generally in agreement over them.