Amazon.com solicited discounted pre-orders for this book for release in 272 pages in September 2008, but by the end of the year, pre-orders had been cancelled. Amazon.com then solicited similarly discounted pre-orders for publication in March 2009. In the meantime, GAIA published a free PDF version in February 2009.

The following review is based on the paper edition.

The overall grade of "C" for the book reflects the average for the all articles, which vary from "A" to "D". In this review, I have evaluated each article in the order it appears as a chapter in the book.

Forthcoming.

The authors revised this article as "Legacies of Empire and Occupation: The Making of the Korean Diaspora in Japan" for publication in The Asia-Pacific Journal (Japan Focus), Volume 37-3-09, 24 September 2009. I have reviewed the revised version as Caprio and Yu 2009 in the "Minorities" section of the Bibliographies feature, where I have shown how the article, though in some ways improved, still has some major flaws.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

Biographical note

Youngmi Rim, in the profiles on Contributors, is described as a PhD candidate in Sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. According to CUNY's website, she is also affiliated with the school's Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

The article reviewed here is said to be based on a dissertation in sociology called "Becoming Japanese: Contested Meanings of Race and Nationality in Contemporary Japan". Lim states in her endnotes to the article that an earlier version was presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (see title and other details below).

This is a partial list of other presentations she has made, and reviews she has published, spanning 2000-2010. Links to my own reviews of the titles has she has reviewed are highlighted. Other comments follow.

Youngmi Lim (2000a)
"What is Ideal Zainichi? The Social Construction of Korean-ness by Koreans in Japan"
(在日韓国知識人の危機：在日韓国人の韓国人たる社会構造)
[ Zainichi Kankoku chishikijin no kiki: Zainichi Kankokujin no Kankokujin taru shakai kōzō ]
[ The crisis of Korea (ROK) intellectuals in Japan: The construction of Koreans (ROK Koreans) in Japan ]
Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (DIJ)
20 January 2000

The kanji title of the above report is as posted on DIJ's website. The bracketed romanization and English dub are mine. The Japanese title is reflected in the following, apparently recycled version.

Youngmi Lim (2000b)
The Crisis of Resident Korean Intellectuals: The Social Construction of Korean-ness by Koreans in Japan
The Association for Asian Studies
Annual Meeting, San Diego, 9-12 March 2000
Japan Sessions, Session 47
To Be Korean in Japan: Constructing Identity at the Intersection of Citizenship, Ethnicity, and Nation
Organizer: Erin Aeran Chung
Chair and Discussant: John J. Lie
Other papers by Chikako Kashiwazaki, Jeffrey P. Bayliss, and Erin Aeran Chung

Youngmi Lim (2004)
Imported People's Culture Movement in Transition: 15 Years of Han Madang
The Pacific Sociological Association
Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 15-18 April 2004
Session 25
Agencies of Social Change and Representations of Dissent in Contemporary Japan
Organizers: Youngmi Lim and Akemi Nakamura
Chair and Discussant: John Lie
Other papers by Akemi Nakamura and Tomomi Yamaguchi

Youngmi Lim (2006)
Limits of Diasporic Identity: Transmission of Korean roots and routes among Japanese of Korean descent
American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting, Montreal, 11-14 August 2006

Youngmi Lim (2008)
Review of David Chapman
Zainichi Korean Ethnicity and Identity
London: Routledge, 2007
In Social Science Japan Journal
November 2008 (Volume 11, Issue 2)
Pages 353-357

Youngmi Lim (2009)
Spoiled Special Permanent Residents? Citizenship, Residency, and Censorship in Contemporary Japan
The Association for Asian Studies
Annual Meeting, Chicago, 26-29 March 2009
Japan Sessions, Session 87
Citizenship, Nationality, and Human Rights in a Global World: "Japanese" Transnational Migrants at Home and Abroad
Organizer: Nobuko Adachi
Chair: James Stanlaw
Discussant: Sonia Ryang
Other papers by James Stanlaw and Nobuko Adachi

Youngmi Lim (2010)
Review of John Lie
Zainichi (Koreans in Japan)
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008
In The Journal of Asian Studies
May 2010 (Volume 69, Number 2)
Pages 621-623

I have noted the names of co-participants in the above AAS Annual Meeting sessions in order to suggest that JAS should not have permitted Lim to review Lie's 2008 book.

Oddly, JAS placed Lim's review of Lie 2008 in the Korea section of its Book Reviews. This, to me, is shameful, for it suggests that registered aliens of one or another Korean affiliation in Japan, especially Special Permanent Residents, are not integrally part of Japan. It is doubly shameful because Lie's book encourages readers to regard even Japanese who happen to be of some degree of Korean descent as "Zainichi (Koreans in Japan".

That Lim plugged Lie's book is not surprising, given her ties to Lie and others in the close-knit world of English-language academic "Zainichi" publicism. Nor, given the back-scratching that goes on among cliques of peers in academia, is it not suprising that JAS allowed her to review a book she could not possibly have panned.

Which is not to say that Lie 2008 should be panned. But it certainly certainly deserves closer scrutiny than apparently Lim was able or willing to give it. And I would think that JAS readers also deserve more candid evaluations.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.