This article explores how undocumented Peruvian laborers have established a significant presence within some of Korea's powerful evangelical churches through their identification of respuestas (answers or signs) from God. Many Peruvians arrived in Korea in the early 1990s on their way to more profitable labor destinations, such as Japan or Europe, but stayed after finding factory work. Through their conversions to Protestantism in Korea, they have begun to identify events such as unplanned pregnancies or their ability to evade deportation as signs that their migration to Korea was predestined. Through promoting their respuestas to various audiences, Peruvians not only recast their unlikely migration as predestined but change their own status from being economic laborers to recognized leaders within Korean churches. Korean church leaders embrace Peruvians and respuestas as a way to promote their church's own cosmopolitan image and desires for launching global missions to locations such as Peru. As such, respuestas are a common framework through which migrants and church leaders co-create their global aspirations and experiences.
first helped me learn how to ask anthropological questions. Hyun Mee Kim and Teofilo Altamirano gave me astute advice in the field. I am grateful to Sharon Dilworth and the late Hilary Masters at Carnegie Mellon University for encouraging me to write and see the world. Some of my most enjoyable moments during the research and writing process came alongside friends doing the same thing. I continue to value the friendships of and learn from fellow researchers, including
This paper explores intersecting narratives of loss and possibility through the experiences of undocumented Peruvian migrant workers who find previously unimaginable possibilities for migration and love despite-and often because of-their inability to remain in South Korea. In this global space, Peruvians are surrounded by people in transit and are inspired to create long-term plans that would be difficult, if not impossible, were they documented and permanent-such as entering into hurried romantic relationships with other migrants. Forging temporarily permanent legal ties in Korea (such as marrying other undocumented foreigners) can have tragic results, such as when marriages dissolve and one partner disappears with the children into the global realm where the other has no legal or financial means to follow. Through re-telling the narrative, both the migrant and ethnographer locate points of possibility and opportunity, and give voice to otherwise undocumented global stories.
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