Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that im/migrants also have prejudices against other ethnicities and nationalities. It is in the process of being transformed from an isolated “foreign bride” to an active “immigrant activist,” the marriage migrants’ sense of “self” broadens and develops multicultural subjectivity.

Paper long abstract:

A phenomenon of marriage migration in East Asia has generated concerns and discussion about "multiculturalism" in these host countries whose ideology of incorporation is based on blood. Much discussion has been focused on how these host societies deal with the influx of im/migrants with different cultural backgrounds. The underlying assumption behind this discussion is that only the citizens of the host countries have to learn to be multiculturalistic whereas the im/migrants automatically embrace multiculturalism.

Based on the author's long term praxis-oriented research on marriage migrants issues since 1995, this paper argues that im/migrants also have prejudices against other ethnicities and nationalities. It is in the process of being transformed from an isolated "foreign bride" to an active "immigrant activist," the marriage migrants' sense of "self" broadens as their views of their social world expands, from the nuclear family to the community of marriage migrants, to the global community of im/migrants and the general marginalized mass. This process of transformation from a "personal subject" to "communal subject " and then "historical subject" is also a process of the making of the marriage migrants' multicultural subjectivity.