Lee Isaac Chung’s movie Minari won plaudits as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for its nuanced and moving portrayal of the Korean American Yi family’s settlement in rural Arkansas. But while most reviewers understandably focused on race, one of the movie’s most significant themes is the Yi family’s relationship with Christianity. The movie’s focus on the Korean American family’s relationship with the church is unsurprising: Christianity is deeply interwoven with modern Korean history and especially with Koreans’ relationship with the United States. The Christian faith was a major conduit through which Koreans negotiated modernity and personally and ideologically connected with the United States.
