Coalitional Identity and Collective Action: Korean Americans for Black Collective Action

From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, Korean Americans have engaged in collective action in support of Black communities. At the same time, Korean–Black relations are built on a history of tension and conflict including the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. Drawing on this background of solidarity and tension, we advanced two models to examine how coalitional identity and empathy may relate to Korean American support for Black collective action. In the coalitional identity and collective action model, coalitional identity is indirectly related to coalitional collective action through ethnocultural empathy. In the empathy-based coalitional identity and collective action model (ECICAM), ethnocultural empathy is indirectly related to coalitional collective action through coalitional identity. Further, we hypothesized that a coalitional identity—operationalized as a person of color (POC) identity—will explain Korean American willingness to participate in collective action in support of the Black community, while a noncoalitional ethnic–racial identity will not relate to coalitional collective action. We tested this question using a cross-sectional sample of Korean American college students (n = 117). Path analysis indicated support for the ECICAM. Analysis of the path coefficients highlighted the importance of POC identity as a coalitional identity over Korean ethnic–racial identity. These findings present initial evidence for the importance of coalitional identities in supporting collective action among minoritized communities.