1020085

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TVNXXX10.1177/15274764211020085Television & New MediaYu

Article
Television & New Media

Cultural Diversity in Canadian

2023, Vol. 24(8) 911­–928
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/15274764211020085
https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764211020085
Kim’s Convenience journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn

Sherry S. Yu1

Abstract
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Kim’s Convenience is the first Asian-led
sitcom in Canadian broadcasting. This popular sitcom, lauded by both audiences and
the television industry, joins the wave of minority-led production which started only
recently in Canada, despite Canada’s pride in multiculturalism as one of its national
characteristics. Emerging within Canada’s unique model of “multiculturalism within a
bilingual framework,” Kim’s Convenience, with a story about a third-language Korean
Canadian immigrant family, offers a critical site to understand how cultural diversity
is communicated in Canadian television today. This study conducts a thematic
analysis of Seasons One and Two with a special focus on interactions across cultures
characterized by social categories such as ethnicity/race, gender, class, language, and
sexuality.

Keywords
broadcasting, ethnicity/race, Kim’s Convenience, sitcom, television, thematic analysis

Introduction
Having debuted in October 2016, and with Season Five airing in 2021, Kim’s
Convenience has been acclaimed as “Canada’s number-one new comedy” with its first
season attracting approximately 933,000 viewers on average per episode, according to
the Numeris TV meter (CBC Media Centre 2016). This first Asian-led sitcom in
Canadian broadcasting is about the Korean Canadian immigrant family of Mr. and

1
University of Toronto, ON, Canada

Corresponding Author:
Sherry S. Yu, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail,
Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada.
Email: sherrys.yu@utoronto.ca
912 Television & New Media 24(8)

Mrs. Kim (a middle-aged, first-generation Korean immigrant couple who run a gro-
cery store in the Regent Park area in Toronto) and their grown-up children, Jung (a
rental car agent at Handy Car Rental) and Janet (a student at the Ontario College of Art
and Design University [OCAD University]) (CBC n.d.; Hunt 2016). As a minority-led
sitcom, Kim’s Convenience follows Little Mosque on the Prairie, the “first Muslim
comedy to air on mainstream North American television” (CBC, 2007–2012), and Da
Kink in My Hair about Jamaican Canadians (Global TV, 2007–2009), and debuted
concurrently with Second Jen, a sitcom about second-generation Asian Canadians
(City TV, 2016–2021) (Carter 2007, 3rd para.; IMDb n.d.; Media Action Media 2011;
Ty 2017).
The emergence of minority-led sitcoms is worthy of research attention. While these
examples may seem to represent a significant number, they in fact respond to the
underrepresentation of minorities, emerging only recently in Canada where multicul-
turalism is one of the officially-acclaimed national characteristics. This lateness is in
contrast to its U.S. neighbor where a variety of programs have been introduced in the
past decades, such as The Cosby Show (1984–1992), All-American Girl (1994–1995),
Dr. Ken (2015–2017), and Fresh Off the Boat (2015–2020) (IMDb n.d.). This lateness
is especially true for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) when it is, as a
public broadcaster, mandated to “reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of
Canada,” as stated in the Broadcasting Act of 1991 (Government of Canada n.d.a.).
One of the contributing attributes of CBC’s programing may be its obligation to offi-
cial language services, following Canada’s unique model of “multiculturalism within
a bilingual framework” from the multiculturalism policy of 1971 (Government of
Canada n.d.a.; House of Commons 1971, 8545). Indeed, this limited multiculturalism
with an emphasis on Anglo-Franco languages (and subsequently the cultures of those
official languages) consistently underscores Canadian broadcasting activities, espe-
cially how cultural diversity is defined and practiced (Raboy 2010; Roth et al. 2011).
Kim’s Convenience as the first story about a third-language Korean Canadian immi-
grant family to air on bilingual CBC is, therefore, unofficial multilingualism finally
emerging within official bilingualism in Canadian broadcasting, and deserves research
attention.
Another reason for research attention is the popularity of Kim’s Convenience that
suggests not only the demand from a broader audience for programs like this, but also
critics’ approval (or at least no major disapproval) of the quality of minority represen-
tation in Kim’s Convenience, amidst the ongoing under- and mis-representation of
minorities (Lee 2016; Ty 2017; Washington 2018). That is, minorities have been invis-
ible most of the time, but when visible, they are “stereotyped, problem people, and
whitewashed” (Fleras and Kunz cited in Fleras 2011, 58–59). The program’s popular-
ity is further extended to the television industry. Kim’s Convenience has received posi-
tive reviews and won multiple awards from leading industry organizations such as the
Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, and the Canadian Screen
Awards (Canadian Press 2017; CBC Arts 2018).
One of the attributes of this popularity may be what Conway (2017a, 12) referred
to as “cultural translation” or “program-makers’ role in mediating between
Yu 913

communities.” Kim’s Convenience is indeed not only about but also by Korean
Canadians. Ins Choi, one of the scriptwriters (as well as the playwright of the original
stage production), is a child of Korean immigrants and delivers his own story of grow-
ing up in Canada and the family’s experience of working at his uncle’s store, Kim’s
Grocery in Etobicoke, Ontario (Hunt 2016). Certainly, Kim’s Convenience is also a
product of what Conway (2017a, 5) referred to as “saleable diversity” in that “cultural
translation” works only within/around commercial logics for profit. However, it is this
very nature of “cultural translation” that is worthy of exploration. What is the nature
and depth of intervention that makes Kim’s Convenience a success while still comply-
ing with commercial logic?
As such, the policy and industry contexts around cultural diversity and minority-led
television production make it a critical site of research to understand how Kim’s
Convenience interprets, negotiates, and represents complex and multi-layered cultural
diversity in Canada today. Kim’s Convenience centers around a Korean Canadian
immigrant family, but their interaction with people at the store, neighborhood, work,
and school, extends diversity across ethnicity/race, gender, class, language, and sexu-
ality, among others. This study conducts a thematic analysis of Seasons One and Two
(a total of twenty-six episodes) with a focus on key messages that run across the text
along the lines of these social categories.

Theoretical Framework
The Policy Framework of Cultural Diversity in Canadian Television
The Canadian multiculturalism policy announced in 1971 was unique, as it was
designed to operate within a bilingual framework (Mackey 1999; Roth et al. 2011). As
a response to the recommendation of the 1963 Laurendeau-Dunton Commission on
bilingualism and biculturalism (or the B and B Commission) that “bilingualism and
biculturalism are indivisible,” the policy defines the relationship between language
and culture in such a way that “biculturalism does not properly describe our society;
multiculturalism is more accurate. . .this act [The Official Languages Act] does not
impinge upon the role of all languages as instruments of the various Canadian cul-
tures. . .” (House of Commons 1971, 8581; Mackey 1999).
Clearly, there is recognition of both multiple languages and cultures. However,
while “bilingualism and biculturalism are indivisible,” multilingualism and multicul-
turalism are not. The rationale is that the Official Languages Act of 1969 “designated”
English and French as Canada’s official languages, and therefore, the use of third
languages is limited to non-official matters (House of Commons 1971, 8581). Later,
the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 (last amended in 2014, Government of Canada
n.d.b.) reaffirmed official bilingualism and unofficial multilingualism, stipulating that
the multiculturalism policy is to “preserve and enhance the use of languages other than
English and French, while strengthening the status and use of the official languages of
Canada” (Section 3[1][i]). Critiques argue that “multiculture is what the dominant
culture (anglophone culture) is not rather than the culture itself” (Yu 2018, 22), and
914 Television & New Media 24(8)

that there are essentially distinct groups in Canada—“English, French, Aboriginal, and
‘Multicultural’”—with language as “the basis of the Other’s exclusion” and “Canadian
white-settler nationalism” and the “‘founding race’ status” prioritized (Conway 2017b;
Haque 2012, 17–18; Mackey 1999).
Broadcasting follows this fundamental aspect of Canadian multiculturalism. The
Broadcasting Act of 1991, which was revised to reflect more precisely the multicul-
tural nature of Canada, still leaves this very notion open to subjective interpretations
and consequently fails to serve multicultural groups (Conway 2017b; Raboy 2010).
The Act states that Canadian broadcasting is required to reflect “Canadian men,
women and children, including equal rights, the linguistic duality and multicultural
and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of aboriginal peoples
within that society” (Section 3[1][d][iii], Government of Canada n.d.a., emphasis
added). Consequently, the CBC is expected to achieve this goal with only two official
languages (Section 3[1][m][iv]). Cultural diversity is further complicated: Canadian
Radio–Television and Telecommunications Commission (n.d.), which governs
Canada’s broadcasting and telecommunications, refers “cultural diversity” to minority
matters: “how different groups – like ethno-cultural minorities, Aboriginal peoples
and persons with disabilities – are represented in broadcasting.”

The Industry Framework of Cultural Diversity in Canadian Television

The under- and mis-representation of minorities in mainstream media is thus a natural
consequence and further widens the information gap in public discourse. The CRTC-
commissioned Task Force for Cultural Diversity on Television (CRTC 2005) reported
an alarming underrepresentation of ethnocultural minorities and aboriginal people in
Canadian broadcasting when benchmarked against the proportion of these groups in
the Canadian population (excluding Quebec) at the time of the study. Canadian media
scholars also continue to document under- and mis-representation of minorities (see
for example, Fleras 2011; Jiwani 2009; Mahtani 2001). Particularly, in television,
minorities continue to be secondary characters except for minority-focused primetime
television dramas (Media Action Media 2011). The situation is similar in the U.S.
despite of the longer history of minority-led production. Specifically, for Asian
Americans, the continuing reproduction of “controlling images” as the Other or model
minorities, regardless of the evolving experiences of Asian Americans, serves to “help
justify economic exploitation and social oppression on the basis of an interlocking
system comprising race, class, and gender” (Diffrient 2011; Hamamoto 1994, 2;
Kim 1995; Kim 2004; Lee 1999).
Bhabha’s (1994) notion of the “third space” is relevant here; the Other is located in
a particular moment in history and reproduced to maintain the system. The “third
space” therefore serves as a space to re-locate the Other through the Other’s new inter-
pretations. Asian American activism can be seen as one way to respond to Asian
American representation (Diffrient 2011; Ono and Pham 2009). Particularly, Korean
American actors who emerged in the mid-1990s are found to contribute to decon-
structing the “controlling images” and bringing changes to the playing field (Diffrient
Yu 915

2011; Hamamoto 1994). Such pressure has continued to grow in the U.S., as mani-
fested in recent social media campaigns such as #OscarsSoWhite and #StarringJohnCho
(Chow 2019; Hess 2016; James and Ng 2017).
All these new interpretations have set the stage for minority-featured or -led pro-
ductions such as the afore-mentioned sitcoms. Certainly, having minority artists in a
production is a plus but does not necessarily guarantee the erasure of the “controlling
images” (Hamamoto 1994). According to Conway (2017a), there is a compromise
between “cultural translation” (or the “negotiation and mediation performed by peo-
ple—the show’s makers” [4] to make “a foreign object or text intelligible in a new
context” [11]) on the one hand, and “saleable diversity” (or the “commercial logic” of
the media industry which forces producers to “erase visible signs of difference in the
name of diversity” [5]) on the other. The studies on Little Mosque consistently pointed
out this compromise that despite its contribution to improving visibility, the white-
washed universalization of Islam and Muslim lives represented what is “‘acceptable’
within the national imaginary” and failed to represent complex identity politics within
the community (Cañas 2008; Conway 2017a; Kassam 2015, 618). The minority-led
productions in the U.S. are not free from such critiques. The whitewashed representa-
tion of the Huxtable family in The Cosby Show, George in The George Lopez Show, or
the Huang family in Fresh Off the Boat also operated only within in the comfort zone
of the dominant audience and failed to make any serious intervention into racism and
social injustice (Hang and Thanh 2018; Inniss and Feagin 1995; Markert 2007).
It is important to note, however, that the mixed reviews are perhaps the best out-
come for minority-involved productions. Failure was the outcome for All-American
Girl (1994), an American version of Kim’s Convenience, when the show only featured
Asian American actors with the rest of the production crew from non-Asian back-
grounds, and even when the producers hired an ““Asian consultant”” and an “Asian
American writer” to bring more Asian-ness to the show for a “white, audience”
(Cassinelli 2008; Kim 2004, 136; Park 2014). Given this context, the acclamation
from both audiences and the industry for Kim’s Convenience raises a question: How
does Kim’s Convenience translate the cultural diversity of Canada today within the
boundary of commercial logic? The following section discusses how the study
approached Kim’s Convenience as a unit of analysis.

Methodology
Text, as part of the production, reveals “the ways in which, in particular cultures at
particular times, people make sense of the world around them” (McKee 2003, 2). Text
in the minority-led production is no exception, and in fact it requires a more careful
methodological approach. This is because unlike media representation of minorities in
general, the “cultural translation” of minority producers offers more nuanced repre-
sentation (Conway 2017a). For Kim’s Convenience as text, as originally written as a
play and scripted for a sitcom, it reveals how the producers, including Korean Canadian
writer, Ins Choi, interpret, negotiate, and represent the world around them at the par-
ticular time of production. This world reflects not only personal aspirations and
916 Television & New Media 24(8)

commercial logics (Conway 2017a), but also the broader social atmosphere, such as
the policy directions within a bilingual framework and Asian activism in response to
under- and mis-representation of minorities in the media, as discussed earlier.
This study explores the text through a thematic analysis, one of the most commonly
used qualitative approaches to documents that attempts to identify major themes that
run throughout the text (Tight 2019). Since the focus of the study is how Kim’s
Convenience communicates cultural diversity, special attention is paid to interactions
between the cultural and linguistic majority and minority, as well as among minorities.
Special attention was also paid to key social categories such as ethnicity/race, gender,
class, language, and sexuality, which characterize the interactions and help tease out
repeating themes (Tight 2019). Each episode is considered a unit of analysis. Each
season constitutes thirteen episodes with approximately twenty-two-minute run-time.
This study analyzes Seasons One and Two (a total of twenty-six episodes). The tran-
scribed text is organized by social categories for a full analysis.

Findings
Ins Choi wanted to write Kim’s Convenience “to make that corner store owner who is
[a] small part in the movie the main part in the play” (Arirang Korea TV 2012). This
unique approach helped de-marginalize the corner store owner who used to make only
a fleeting appearance in movies, and provide a microscopic lens through which the
lives of the corner store family can be amplified. The Kims interpret the world around
them according to their ethnic, socio-cultural, economic, gender, linguistic, and gen-
erational experiences, and reveal diversity in their own ways. Some are the reminders
of Hamamoto’s (1994) “controlling images” while others are new images that are
often overlooked in the media. Interestingly, Kim’s Convenience gives a twist to both
old and new images and offers its own nuanced cultural translation. The analysis iden-
tified three key themes—perpetual Other, heterogenous Koreans, and bicultural/sub-
cultural Canadians—and explored each by using examples from the episodes.

Perpetual Other
Asians have long been represented either as the Other or model minorities (Kim 1995;
Kim 2004; Lee 1999). Kim’s Convenience reminds us of both of these common repre-
sentations and discusses them extensively, rather than subtly as was the case for the
minority-led sitcoms discussed earlier. This section discusses the Other, with the model
minority following in the next section. Note that the interaction between the Kims and
individuals from the cultural majority is generally favorable, for example, between the
Kims and their customers, and Jung/Janet and their colleagues/friends, such as Shannon
(Jung’s manager) and Gerald (Janet’s roommate). However, there are occasions in
which the Kims experience racism that is explicitly related to ethnicity and implicitly
related to other social categories such as gender and class. Indeed, race-based hate
crime in Canada is on the rise again since the global pandemic, especially targeting East
Asians (Xu 2020). This is alarming since the number of “police-reported” race-based
Yu 917

hate crimes has been falling in recent years (Moreau 2020). What is interesting about
Kim’s Convenience however is that it does not end the conversation on racism with rac-
ism itself, but extends it to other issues such as sexism, and characterizes the racist as a
genuinely rude person.

Chinese, “you people.”. In the episode entitled “Date Night” (Season Two, Episode
Five), Jung ruins his Korean roommate Kimchee’s “collector’s item” basketball shoes
with burrito juice. To find a new pair for Kimchee, Jung is internet surfing, and Shan-
non, Jung’s boss at work, volunteers to help out by introducing him to e-commerce
sites and accompanying him to the offline meeting with a seller. When they finally
meet the seller at the seller’s place, the seller (White, male) greets Shannon in English
and turns to Jung saying, “Um, Konichiwa. I’m sorry. It’s the only Oriental I know.”
Shannon and Jung exchange uncomfortable, puzzled look but start bargaining anyway.
Shannon, as an experienced e-commerce shopper, is more proactive in negotiating the
price whereas Jung, on the other hand, tries to just accept the offered price. However,
the seller calls Jung “Chinese” and says that “you people like pinching your pennies.”
The incoherent mix-up of the Japanese greeting “Konichiwa,” “Oriental” as a refer-
ence for Asia, and “Chinese” as a reference for Asian, reveals the seller’s pre-existing
knowledge about the Other.
The twist to this rather familiar racist moment is when Shannon, rather than Jung,
refuses to bargain with a “racist” while Jung tries to dismiss the seller as just “igno-
rant” and tries to get the deal done. However, it is when the seller turns to Shannon and
starts spitting out sexual comments by calling her “sweetheart” and saying that she is
upset because it may be “that time of the month,” Jung immediately stops bargaining.
The seller, however, does not stop there but moves further to establish a masculine
“us” with Jung and says: “Give us a smile. You’d be pretty if you smiled (emphasis
added).” Here, the seller, as both White and man, shifts his power against Asian to
woman while simultaneously shifting his bond with White to man. Regardless, this
sexist comment, following the racist comment, is rejected by both White woman and
Asian man and makes the seller a genuinely rude person.

Refugee, “the boat people.”. In another instance, Ms. Murray, Janet’s professor at
OCAD where Janet studies photography, relentlessly displays a racialized gaze and is
reluctant to negotiate her perspective. In the episode “Rude Kid” (Season One, Epi-
sode Six), Janet is following up with Ms. Murray on her low marks on an assignment.
Ms. Murray tells Janet that the assignment is supposed to be about “you,” but there is
no reference to her “refugee experience” (a false assumption) or “that little conve-
nience store off Sherbourne” (by referring to Kim’s Convenience). When Janet tries to
correct Ms. Murray that her parents are not “refugees,” Ms. Murray replaces “refu-
gees” with “boat people.” When Janet says her parents “flew” via “Air Canada prob-
ably,” Ms. Murray replaces the word with “fled.” Here, a series of rejections shows
Ms. Murray’s unwillingness to listen, just like the e-commerce seller, and reveals
deeply rooted stereotypes which Janet fails to deconstruct. Furthermore, the reference
to “that little convenience store” with the emphasis on “little” is reinforced by the
918 Television & New Media 24(8)

former. In other words, Janet’s ethnicity does not only automatically signify legal sta-
tus (as a “refugee”) but also socio-economic status (from a low-income family). Com-
bined, Janet’s ethnicity leaves her in further vulnerability: Janet may not receive the
grade she deserves if she does not satisfy Ms. Murray’s stereotypes.
Later in the episode, Ms. Murray and her son, Oliver, visit Kim’s Convenience
where Oliver makes a mess, running around the store. Mr. Kim says, “Ya! Ya! Eh. . .
This is not a playground. No running in the store,” and Ms. Murray responds, “We
don’t use the “N” word.” Mr. Kim, in surprise, looks at a Black female customer in the
store with an apologetic smile, and says that he did not use the N word (as a euphe-
mism for a racial slur). Ms. Murray responds, “Oh, the other “N” word. No” (or the
“Negative” word). Mr. Kim then tries to stop Oliver by flicking his forehead while he
was crushing chip bags by jumping on them. Ms. Murray is furious and justifies her
son’s behavior in that he is only five years old. Later, when Janet apologizes to Ms.
Murray and explains the flicking, saying “he [Mr. Kim] does it to me all the time,” Ms.
Murray this time equates Janet with a “victim rationalizing the behavior of the aggres-
sor.” Here, Kim’s Convenience creates yet another genuinely rude character.

Heterogeneous Koreans: Diversity Within

Asian immigrants are often depicted as a “model minority” or “the epitome of meri-
tocracy and success in American society” (Chung 2007, 37) which ignores diversity
within the Asian community. Kim’s Convenience goes beyond this stereotype and
introduces new images of Asians that are often overlooked in mainstream media.
Interestingly, these Asians are not represented solely as the opposite of model minori-
ties but reveal their own struggles of identity construction as well as the stereotypes
toward their own Other through the Korean Canadian gaze. The ironies and contradic-
tions in these nuanced cultural translations of Korean Canadians provide a fuller pic-
ture of diversity within the community.

Model minority versus average minority. The Kims, as ordinary Koreans, respond to,
rather than represent, the model minority. Their ordinariness is contrasted to the model
minority in the community, and yet their varying responses to the model minority ide-
als offer new insights on the heterogeneity of the community. In the episode entitled
“Janet’s Photos” (Season One, Episode Two), Mrs. Kim is having a conversation with
her church friends including Mrs. Park who sarcastically undermines Janet’s education
at OCAD and her potential photography career. To Mrs. Park, OCAD is a “college”
since the letter ‘C’ stands for college, and being a photographer is a “starving” career.
(Note that colleges in Canada provide two-year diplomas rather than four-year degrees,
and are equivalent to community colleges in the U.S. Also note that OCAD is a uni-
versity, granted the status in 2002 and officially named OCAD University in 2010
[OCAD n.d.]). Mrs. Kim defends Janet by saying that it is a “university degree but also
very practical,” but Mrs. Park further moves on to Jung’s career at a rental car com-
pany, and says she could find it useful in case her BMW breaks down, despite the slim
chance of this happening.
Yu 919

Although Mr. and Mrs. Kim defend their children, they simultaneously express
their own aspirations for their children to become part of the model minority. To Mr.
Kim, OCAD is also not good enough. In an instance where Mr. Mehta, a neighborhood
friend, and his son, Raj, visit Kim’s Convenience, Mr. Mehta starts boasting about
Raj’s success as a medical student (Season Two, Episode Ten). Mr. Kim responds with
a frown on his face in disapproval: “Janet in university, too. Kind of. . . Art school.”
Here, it implies that just like Mrs. Park, Mr. Kim does not consider OCAD a univer-
sity. Similarly, for Mrs. Kim, she is glad that Jung is working hard and staying out of
trouble (as he had been in a juvenile detention center), but she thinks that Jung can do
better than a rental car agent. In the same episode as above (Season One, Episode
Two), Jung applies for an assistant manager position and tells Mrs. Kim that it is a
“good job” with higher pay and better benefits. Mrs. Kim responds in her wry smile,
“So does doctor or judge or website design,” implying her ideal model-minority aspi-
rations. In contrast, Janet and Jung are happy with their own careers. Especially for
Janet, having graduated (high school) at the top of her class, photography seemed her
first choice rather than an alternative option (Season Two, Episode Thirteen).

Korean Canadian versus Korean. The Korean community in Canada represents approxi-
mately 242,000 Koreans who are Canadian citizens (56%), permanent residents (22%),
and temporary residents including international students (22%, MOFA 2019). The
Kim family represents the older cohort of immigrants who started their family in Can-
ada. These Korean and Canadians are contrasted with Koreans from Korea, repre-
sented by Janet’s cousin Nayoung. The episode entitled “Frank & Nayoung” (Season
One, Episode Four) reveals a constantly shifting cultural hierarchy depending on cul-
tural fluency.
Earlier in the episode, Mrs. Kim and Janet are having a conversation about Janet’s
cousin, Nayoung, who will be visiting them from Korea, and her fashion style. Mrs.
Kim identifies Nayoung as a “Korean style girl” who needs “Canada clothes.” To her,
Korean style is “not wear[ing] enough clothes” and that makes Nayoung look like a
“slut.” Janet criticizes her mom for being judgmental based on clothes and tries to
convince her that “[t]here’s a lot of Korean girls and a lot of Korean girl styles.”
However, Mrs. Kim insists by saying “How else I judge?” implying that it is Nayoung’s
fault for her to judge so. That night, Nayoung arrives at Kim’s Convenience in a short
black skirt with suspenders, black knee-high socks, and racy open-shoulder blouse
with a matching light-pink ribbon hairband over her burgundy hair in two-side pony
tails. Janet immediately thinks that Nayoung’s clothing is a “costume.”
Multiple layers of identities unfold here and reveal the Korean Canadian gaze.
Words such as “Canada clothes” and “costume” signify Mrs. Kim and Janet’s semiotic
interpretation of the local cultural code or Canadian way of doing as Korean and
Canadian. A subsequent layer to this is the heterogeneity of the diasporic community
in which ethnicity is only one of many factors that binds the community together. As
Vertovec (1999) describes, diaspora is a “social form,” a “type of consciousness,” and
a “mode of cultural production” that it creates its own distinctive culture while being
influenced by both the country of origin and the country of settlement (2). Therefore,
920 Television & New Media 24(8)

although commonalities with the country of origin do exist, it is both Korean and
Canadian nuances within diasporic Korean culture that makes it uniquely different
from Korea’s Korean culture of its time, and that constructs a Korean Canadian
identity.

Accented English versus accented Korean. Later in the same episode (Frank & Nayoung,
Season One, Episode Four), the Korean Canadian versus Korean hierarchy shifts when
this time Janet’s authenticity as Korean is challenged due to her lack of cultural flu-
ency. Janet and Nayoung are having lunch with Janet’s friends Gerald and Semira at a
Korean restaurant. Janet is irritated by Nayoung’s teaching Korean language to her
friends by calling them “Obah” and “Eonni” [generic terms for siblings or a close
older male and female respectively]) in her exaggerated Japanese-(rather than Korean)
sounding accent, and her insistence on instructing them on the proper Korean way of
eating steamed tofu stew. Here, Semira seems to trust Nayoung more by physically
turning to Nayoung and asking her what to do with the raw egg which came with the
stew. When Nayoung breaks the egg into Janet’s stew as it is what “we do,” Janet says
“I know how I do” but does not want the egg in the stew. Then Semira questions
Janet’s authenticity as Korean, saying: “But you’ve never actually been to Korea.”
Later, Janet explodes when the waiter asks “how’s everything?” and Nayoung inter-
prets Janet’s insufficient, accented Korean when the waiter poses a puzzled look, say-
ing: “um. . .sorry, what?”
Here is the third layer of Korean diasporic identity, that is, the inability to fluently
speak the language is seen as “a sign of loss of authenticity” (Ang 2002, 30). The het-
erogeneity of the Korean community includes Koreans speaking accented Korean,
who may also have never been to Korea. Janet’s accented Korean is certainly unusual
to see in sitcoms in which immigrants speaking accented English is more common, as
demonstrated by Mr. and Mrs. Kim and their “loss of authenticity” in the dominant
culture.
Kim’s Convenience offers yet another twist to language in an occasion where Janet
mimics her mom’s accented English to her own advantage. In the episode entitled
“Sneak Attack” (Season Two, Episode Seven), Janet tries to get into a filmmaker’s
party through the stage door when the party is already at full capacity. She is stopped
by a non-White, female security guard, and when Janet does not respond to the guard
immediately, the guard asks her, “Do you understand? Do you speak English?” Janet
pretends to be a filmmaker from/about North Korea in order to escape the moment and
starts mimicking Mrs. Kim’s accented English. To that, the guard instantly becomes
sympathetic to Janet and shares the story of “my country” which is “full of corrup-
tion,” and finally lets Janet in to the party for her to share her story. Later, Janet reunites
with the guard who unexpectedly visits Kim’s Convenience as a customer. Janet con-
tinues to speak in accented English, and Mrs. Kim immediately notices that Janet is
mimicking her accent: “that is a terrible accent. Nobody sounds like that.”
Here, an interesting dynamic plays out between the two Others to the cultural and
linguistic majority. Just like the e-commerce seller and Ms. Murray, the guard imme-
diately operates stereotypes that Janet, as Asian, might not speak English, and uses her
Yu 921

relatively better linguistic capacity to investigate Janet. Once Janet’s identity, although
a deception, has been revealed, the guard establishes a bond with Janet as people from
not here and uses her authority as a security guard to help Janet. Janet, on the other
hand, fully capitalizes on Mrs. Kim’s accent just to “reinforce her [the guard’s]
assumptions about who I told her I may have been.” Janet, as technically the only
person from here, utilizes her “cultural flexibility” (Davé 2017, 146) to move between
fully fluent and accented English, a privilege which the guard and Mrs. Kim do not
have. This is yet another unusual scene in mainstream media and also another cultural
translation Kim’s Convenience offers.

Bi-Cultural/Sub-Cultural Canadians: Diversity Across

Kim’s Convenience shows diversity through interactions not only with the cultural and
linguistic majority and between Koreans, but also between Koreans and other minori-
ties from diverse ethnic/racial, linguistic, sexual, and religious backgrounds who share
common interests and frustrations. These interactions, which are also often overlooked
in the media, reveal the minorities’ own interpretations of the world around them based
on their own experiences from both here, where they are, and there, where they are
from. The twist or cultural translation here is that this experience is not presented as
foreign, or as not fitting in the Anglo-Franco bicultural framework, but rather familiar,
as demonstrating naturally unfolding yet largely neglected diverse forms of bi-cultur-
alism of here and there. The cultural translation further brings forth the relationship
between cultural and subcultural minorities along the lines of various social categories
other than ethnicity and race.

Bi-cultural Canadians. Kim’s Convenience, which may have been a fleeting scene in
another production, is here a central location where family, neighbors, and of course,
customers from diverse backgrounds convene and cross. Mr. and Mrs. Kim generally
get along well with customers from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, especially
their Asian immigrant neighbors, Mr. Mehta and Mr. Chin. Indeed, the 2016 Census
(Statistics Canada 2017) finds that nearly 22 percent of the Canadian population are
immigrants or permanent residents, and Asia continues to be the top source of immi-
gration between 2011 and 2016.
Their mundane conversations on various topics, from universal (e.g., parenting,
marriage, aging) to trendy ones (e.g., pet culture, water bottle culture) reveal bicultur-
alism in their own right based on experiences from here and there. In the episode
entitled “Cardboard Jung” (Season Two, Episode Four), Mr. Kim and Mr. Mehta are at
Kim’s Convenience and have a conversation about the water bottle culture in North
America, referring to a customer in her full yoga gear, and how “[e]verybody sip water
like their life depend on.” Mr. Kim makes a cultural reference to yoga as an invention
of “your people” (referring to Mr. Mehta’s South Asian origin). The “us”-and-”them”
division is immediately set up, yet within the “Orient” (since both are Asians, Said
1979, 43), and is put forth bluntly yet operates rather casually. Both characters seem to
pay no attention to the reference to “your people,” which was taken as offensive in the
922 Television & New Media 24(8)

case of the e-commerce seller. Instead, they share their similar childhood experiences
with water while growing up in Asia. They say that they “didn’t drink from sterile
canisters crafted by hippies” and “had to go to well”—which gives them a reason to
collectively dismiss the widespread water bottle culture in North America. Here, cul-
tural experience from there—where they are from—is not foreign but rather familiar
as a source of bonding, and makes them comfortably bi-cultural Asian and Canadian.
The Other’s third culture or multiculture is foregrounded and offers new perspectives
to multiculturalism in a bilingual framework.

Sub-cultural Canadians. Part of Kim’s Convenience’s diversity is represented by sexual

and religious minorities. Particularly for sexual minorities, the conversation between
Mr. Kim and Mr. Chin, the neighbor, reveals the change in the neighborhood over the
years: “Ah. Remember when we start? No gay in sight. Where they all come from?
Immigration? Refugee?” (Season One, Episode One). In fact, since Canada legalized
same-sex marriage in 2005, there has been an increase of same-sex families (64,575)
by about 40 percent between 2006 and 2011 (Statistics Canada 2015).
In the episode entitled “Gay Discount” (Season One, Episode One), Kevin (White),
who seems to be a regular customer, and his friend Roger (Black), walk into Kim’s
Convenience and ask Mr. Kim if they could put a poster of their performance in the
window during Pride week. Mr. Kim takes a look at the poster, which features a per-
former in the middle almost half naked with “Gay Town Boys” in rainbow colors run-
ning at the top, and says: “It’s, uh, messy poster. Who make? Get refund.” Roger takes
it personally and finds Mr. Kim “homophobic.”
Stating clearly his stance of “no problem with the gay” upfront, Mr. Kim develops
a typology of gay based on his actual and mediated experiences with gays: noisy gay
(during Pride week) and “quiet, respectful” gay (Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick
Harris). He then equates “gay” and “Korean” as minority groups within society, but
contrasts them based on their reaction to marginalization: the former “yells” and is
“being loud” whereas the latter neither organizes a “big parade” nor “yell” even if
“some people don’t like Korean.” Here, an interesting bond and hierarchy is simulta-
neously established: quiet, respectful gays resemble Koreans. This ambivalent inter-
pretation of gays invites and simultaneously denies the accusation of “homophobic.”
This interpretation is also accepted and simultaneously challenged by Kevin who was
initially apologetic to Mr. Kim for Roger’s rudeness, but later challenges Mr. Kim
since Kevin himself will soon be part of the crowd which Mr. Kim despises. The con-
versation ends on a comedic note when Kevin asks Mr. Kim how he could tell who is
gay, and Mr. Kim prides himself that his “gaydar” is “100 percent guarantee.” After
all, what Mr. Kim focused on was the quality of the poster, not sexuality.

Discussion and Conclusion

The thematic analysis of Kim’s Convenience finds that it contributes to filling the gap
in public discourse through diverse representations of cultural diversity within Canada
today. While complying with bilingualism (as produced in English), Kim’s Convenience
Yu 923

delivers third language (although only partially) and culture, and the characters’ inter-
pretation of the world around them. Projecting onto Conway’s (2017a) “cultural trans-
lation” within “saleable diversity,” two observations can be made. First, with respect
to “cultural translation” as the producers’ “acts of negotiation in the broadest possible
sense – inquiry, explanation, and clarification, in ways that give shape and contour to
the relationships between communities” (Conway 2017a, 12), Kim’s Convenience
brings twists to familiar stereotypes (about not only the minority but also the majority)
by taking them beyond just reminding us of ongoing practices and opening them up for
“inquiry, explanation, and clarification” about the diversity of Canada today.
Specifically, the perpetual Other reminds us of the us-and-them binary between the
majority and minority, in that Canadian Jung and Janet are immediately perceived as
the Other in phrases such as “you people” and “boat people.” However, the “racists”
turn out to be also sexist in one case and an overprotective parent in the other, who are
genuinely rude people. The emphasis on individual characteristics, rather than the
majority as a collective group, can be a tactic of “saleable diversity” (Conway 2017a).
However, this approach simultaneously helps explore the majority-racist-minority-
victim binary and suggests alternative ways to think about stereotypes and race
relations.
The same logic is used to bring twists to the “controlling images” (Hamamoto
1994) by revealing the ironies and contradictions of minority identities: that is, minori-
ties can also be accountable for othering their Other. Within the Korean community,
there are those who exercise model minorities, those who aspire to become model
minorities, and those who are happy to be who they are. In the binary of Korean
Canadian versus Korean, a cultural hierarchy is established around cultural fluency of
Canadian or Korean cultures and makes each side instantly other each other, depend-
ing on the type of cultural fluency required by situation (e.g., Canadian style clothing,
Korean language). In the binary of accented English versus accented Korean, language
can be an aspect of vulnerability for both Mr. and Mrs. Kim and Janet, and also of
manipulation for Janet. Finally, minorities who used to be labeled as third culture or
multiculture can be fully and comfortably bicultural in their own right and offer new
perspectives to Anglo-Franco biculturalism inherited from bilingualism. There is a
sense of us based on shared generational or ethnicity-specific experiences, despite the
equally existing us-and-them division within the Orient. Minorities also share a com-
mon ground for being minorities (ethnic minority and sexual minority).
Such nuanced “translation” of culture seems to make Kim’s Convenience more
“saleable.” That is, proper cultural translation—by challenging stereotypes and simul-
taneously revealing new images—promotes rather than hinders saleability in an
increasingly multicultural society. The theme of perpetual Other and majority-minor-
ity confrontation could have been “commercial suicide” considering audiences of
comedy sitcoms “tune in to be entertained, not to be confronted with social problems”
(Jhally 1992, 4–5). However, racism is carefully translated to reveal the complexity of
individuality, thus offering an alternative rather than uncomfortable way to approach
racism. Heterogeneous Koreans and bicultural/subcultural Canadians further offer a
broader spectrum of multicultural Canada.
924 Television & New Media 24(8)

This does not mean that the “saleable diversity” of Kim’s Convenience is free from
criticism. Rather, compliance to the increasing “industrialization of culture” in which
the production is influenced by a web of factors including producers, organizational
mandate and commercial logic, and regulations/policies, is also present (Havens and
Lotz 2012). One of the examples is accented English. Janet’s accented Korean and
manipulation of English was a new approach; however, Mr. and Mrs. Kim’s accented
English and the reinforcement of the “loss of authenticity” in the dominant culture
(Ang 2002) was still dominant. Accented English, as constructed by Canadian actors,
received negative reviews as stereotypical, a function of the “white gaze” (Ricepaper
2016, 4th para.), or sarcastically just “funny. . .So we are laughing at but not with
them” (Toronto Star 2016). To this end, the use of more Korean between Mr. and Mrs.
Kim (using captions) or “perfect unaccented English” has been also suggested to
“show they are using the language they know” (Toronto Star 2016).
Speaking more Korean can be a strategy to consider gradually, according to the lead
actor, Paul Lee, “[i]f the audience has invested in us they won’t mind reading the occa-
sional subtitle and it makes it more authentic” (Wong 2016, 29th para.). This comment
directly speaks to “saleable diversity” that the stereotype is needed until the show
reaches a critical mass. The dilemma between being completely realistic (by “speak-
ing non-stop Korean” to reflect the first-generation dominant Korean community
more closely, Statistics Canada 2011; Wong 2016, 29th para.) at the cost of losing
audiences on the one hand, and being close enough to reality (by speaking in accented
broken English) at the cost of reinforcing stereotypes on the other, clearly exists. The
latter, however, was chosen. Nonetheless, the positive side is that “the revoicing of
racial objectification by an Asian points to and directs listeners to critique racial objec-
tification of Asians” (Chun 2004, 285).
Another example of saleable diversity is Korean Canadian characters being played
by non-Korean, Asian actors such as Jung by Simu Liu and Kimchee by Andrew
Phung. Such race-based casting corresponds to the case of Philip Ahn, a Korean
American actor who is most famously known as Master Kan in Kung Fu (1972–1975,
Chung 2006). Ahn’s “exceptional Korean heritage” also as son of An Ch’ang-ho, an
“anticolonial revolutionary” for Korea, was not promoted in order to him to be lumped
into “a comfortable, homogeneous “Chinese” coupling that allayed any anxieties
mainstream audiences might have had concerning ethnic or racial mixing” (Chung
2006, 44, 48).
Nonetheless, emerging in the unique policy and industry contexts, a story about a
third-language immigrant family airing on bilingual CBC carries symbolic and sub-
stantial significance. Kim’s Convenience shows cultural diversity through the Kims
who share their experiences as Korean Canadians in their own ways, depending on
their own diasporic experience, life values, gender roles, language capacity, and views
on sexuality. Their experiences are neither monolithically Korean ways nor blindly
oppositional ways challenging the “controlling images.” Instead, the representation of
their nuanced experiences of being the Other and simultaneously othering their respec-
tive Other opens new ways to think about cultural diversity in the context of Canadian
Yu 925

multiculturalism within a bilingual framework, and leaves room for further contribu-
tion and exploration of minority-led production.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Sherry S. Yu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3628-4928

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Author Biography
Sherry S. Yu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media, and the
Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Her research explores multiculturalism,
media, and social integration. She is the author of Diasporic Media beyond the Diaspora:
Korean Media in Vancouver and Los Angeles (2018, UBC Press) and the co-editor of Ethnic
Media in the Digital Age (2019, Routledge).