The Case Against Exceptionalism

The first line in a Min Jin Lee novel gives you the whole story. In Free Food For Millionaires, it’s “Competence can be a curse.” In her follow-up, Pachinko, it’s “History has failed us, but no matter.” Both establish the thesis and themes of the novels, and of her larger project of writing about the Korean diasporic experience. The first line of Lee’s latest novel, American Hagwon, does the same: “The rules of engagement have changed already.” The novel, which came out last week nearly a decade after Pachinko was published, situates her characters—and by extension, the Korean diaspora—at a point of transition where they must adapt. Ever concerned with the financial realities of Korean families, in American Hagwon, Lee considers the cost, both economic and human, of a people striving to elevate itself. American Hagwon tells the story of a community centered around a hagwon founded in Los Angeles by Korean immigrants. Hagwons are cram schools that are incredibly popular in South Korea, and in the U.S. among Korean communities. They exist to supplement the day-to-day education students get at school. Students often attend them every day after school and late into the night, doing extra work to get ahead academically and to prepare for the highly competitive exams required for admission to the top Korean universities, as well as elite American universities.

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