Learning to Become a Migrant: Migrant Pre-Arrival Trainings for Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Marriage Migrants to South Korea

Marriage migration and labor migration are key pathways of human mobility in Asia. While popular destination countries in East Asia adopt strict immigration policies, some receiving states adopt the pre-arrival training for the migrants to facilitate a smooth immigrant incorporation. In this paper, I ask how migrant training before departure to the receiving country shapes migrant understandings of themselves and the destination countries. With the case of marriage migrants and temporary migrant workers from Vietnam to South Korea, I also analyze the similarities and differences between the training organized for each group. The findings of this paper comes from 18 months of qualitative fieldwork in Vietnam and South Korea, with 87 interviews with both marriage and labor migrants in various stages of their migration journey, instructors of these trainings, as well as various migrant intermediaries who take part in the process. Training materials as well as some observations were also analyzed.

The training first teaches the marriage migrants and migrant workers to embrace their Vietnamese national identity in relation to the new destination. While the workers as a representatives of the Vietnamese nation are encouraged to perform the task as an employee well, marriage migrants become subjected to their gender roles. The migrant workers are trained to prepare for return migration, while the focus during the marriage migrant training is on them planning the permanent settlement. The return to Vietnam is framed as contingencies for the brides and the concrete steps to take upon return are vaguely mentioned. This research sheds light on the immigrant integration efforts before migrants reach their destination, and how immigrant categories shape the types of pre-arrival training that shape their migrant subjectivities along with their expected roles in the host society.