Sociological Imagination Analysis

The sociological imagination is a term coined by C. Wright Mills, an American sociologist. The state of mind allows us to view the world in a sociological perspective by connecting biography, or personal experiences, with social structure and history. The synthesis of the three allows the individual to examine their place in the historical moment and social structure and see how it connects with other people in history. To develop the sociological imagination, three components should be taken into consideration during analysis: biography, social structure, and history (Mills 2). In this paper, I will analyze my life using the sociological imagination.

Biography
Within the first six years of my childhood, I lived in three different countries.

Many Korean communities resided there and my family was able to find our own community, in which I spent the majority of my childhood. My middle school had a diverse population with a minority group largely composed of Koreans. My family also attended a Korean church every week. Although I was living in America, within the boundaries of my home and community, I was raised and surrounded by the foundations of Korean culture. I was expected to embrace my Korean culture and my parents educated me to ensure that I would not forget my mother tongue. The biggest aspect of Korean culture is its emphasis for the respect towards the elderly. Those younger in age were required to act a certain way of respect towards those in the upper social stratum, in this case, those older in age. I had to greet the adults by bowing and act a certain way that required me to suppress my own wantings and feelings during the interaction. My mother scolded me multiple times every time I failed to properly greet the adults at church. In a way, I was inherently trained to practice subordinism to those with power and

Many parents passed away while grieving for their children’s unfair deaths and during protests that demanded the truth from the government. The students who had lost their lives had adhered to the instructions of the adults. However, the authoritative figures had betrayed their trust by concealing the truth of federal corruption, involving Park administrations, which resulted in the loss of 300 lives. Personally, the Sewol incident impacted me as many victims were students close to my age. It was the first time that I realized that politics and corruption could directly impact the lives of the