Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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Kennedy legend.

Meanwhile, John’s younger brother, Robert (1925–68), made a name for himself as an

assistant to Joseph

McCarthy

in the attempt to purge communists from all branches o

the government. Robert’s connection with McCarthy would later seem anomalous in light

of his much-touted radical credentials. Yet his father had tended to see Roosevelt’s

internationalism though the prism of communist or Jewish conspiracy.

After a less than distinguished period in the Senate, John Kennedy ran for the

residency in 1960, where the Kennedy machine defeated consummate parliamentarian

and

Texas

Senator Lyndon B.

Johnson

for the nomination and barely defeated Richard

Nixon

in the general

elections

. With help from friends, John Kennedy also had become

the celebrated author of

Profiles in Courage

(1954), for which he earned a

Pulitzer

Prize

. At the same time, Robert matched Nixon in campaign strategy including helping

to get Rev. Martin Luther

King,

Jr. released from jail in the week before the election,

swinging many

African American

votes to Kennedy (with a poor civil-rights record) and

providing the slim margin of victory.

JFK created a special moment for the Kennedy myth, epitomized in the epithet

“Camelot,” linking his regime to the mythical age of King Arthur. The president’s

reliance on his

family,

especially his father’s advice, and his younger brother continued

with Robert as an activist

Attorney-General

civil rights

and a key role in Cuban

interventions. Following JFK’s assassination—again a defining moment for the nation—

Robert continued serving Lyndon Johnson, although his contempt for the Texan made

this short-lived, and he seized the opportunity of a vacant New York Senate seat.

In 1968, following Eugene McCarthy’s strong showing against Johnson in the New

Hampshire primary “Bobby” Kennedy joined the race for the presidency After winning

the

California

primary in June, however, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.

This left Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy as the remaining son (the daughters had

public but less political and sometimes tragic lives). “Inheriting” the Massachusetts

Senate seat, he had developed a strong reputation as a good legislator without the

charisma of John or the political savvy of Robert. Nevertheless, the Kennedy mystique

might have gained him the White House but for a July 1969 incident at Chappaquiddick,

in which Edward drove off a bridge, drowning Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy’s failure to

report the accident immediately to police led to the widespread suspicion that he had been

drunk. When he later tried to wrest the

Democratic Party

nomination from Jimmy

Carter

in 1980, the incident and other rumors haunted him. As the third most senior

senator, Edward has remained a powerful liberal voice in the Democratic Party.

In the next generation, while Kennedy “cousins”—including member of Congress

Joseph P. Kennedy II (Massachusetts), Patrick Kennedy (Rhode Island) and Maryland

Lieutenant-Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—have been visible in politics and

media, John F.Kennedy Jr., became the focus of the family mystique. Since his birth to

the charismatic first family and the photograph of him saluting his father’s cortege in

1963, he has been treated by media and the public as a prince whose time on the throne

would come. His legal career and political

magazine

George

were followed in detail, as

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 626

were his dating with and marriage to Carolyn Bessette. When, in July 1999, he crashed

his single-engine plane at Martha’s Vineyard en route to a Kennedy clan wedding in

Hyannisport (although he was not qualified for the flight), the incident was treated as a

national tragedy by media and government—and a tragic myth of the rise and fall o

royalty brought full circle.

Further reading

Colier, P. and Horowitz, D. (1984)

The Kennedys,

New York: Summit.

Wills, G. (1982)

The Kennedy Imprisonment,

Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

ROBERT GREGG

Kent State shootings

In 1970 the US National Guard opened fire on student antiwar protesters at Kent State

University in Ohio, killing four and wounding eleven others. The incident shocked the

nation and galvanized student-led opposition to US military aggression in Vietnam and

Cambodia. A wave of demonstrations erupted around the country in response, wreaking

havoc on college

campuses

and increasing pressure on President

Nixon

to soften his

stance on US intervention in Southeast Asia. The incident was one of many during the

politically turbulent 1960s and 1970s that contributed to young people’s alienation from

the political process.

SARAH SMITH

Kerner Commission

Special Commission appointed by President Lyndon

Johnson

in July 1967, to investigate

race riots

of the preceding two years. The final report of the National Advisory

Commission on Civil Disorders, released in March 1968, detailed patterns of inequality

and racism embedded in urban life. It also issued a warning: “What white Americans

have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society

is deeply implicated in the

ghetto

. White institutions created it, white institutions

maintain it, and white society condones it. Our nation is moving towards two societies,

one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

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The Kerner Commission’s report was characteristic of a time before the full impact o

renewed

immigration

was felt. Race was one division in American society but others

were becoming increasingly apparent. Nevertheless, American society would become

increasingly divided between those who benefited from the perquisites of

suburban

culture and those confined to

inner cities

as a growing

underclass

ROBERT GREGG

Kerouac, Jack

b. 1922; d. 1969

Poet and chronicler of the

beat generation,

a term whose meaning he defined. Best

known for

On the Road

(1957), a beat pilgrimage across America, he later wrote

The

harma Bums

(1958), appealing to Zen

Buddhism,

and

Big Sur

(1962). He remains an

iconic figure for later generations.

GARY McDONOGH

kindergarten and Head Start

Influenced by the work of early nineteenth-century Swiss theorist Pestalozzi, who

emphasized moral education, humane pedagogical methods, different processes for

different stages of learning, and connecting learning to the real world, the word

kindergarten

—“child garden”—was coined by German educator Freidrich Froebel.

Froebel believed that

children

needed to unite their spirits and their reason and be guided

by an entity other than the

family

towards goodness.

Kindergartens arrived in America between 1848 and 1860, were incorporated into the

school system in St. Louis by 1876, and subsequently emerged as the formal context in

which children make the transition from

home

to school. This transition can be

articularly difficult for children whose backgrounds, values and practices differ from the

middle-class,

Anglican values and practices which inform schools. In an attempt to ease

this transition, Head Start was created under Title II of the Economic Opportunity Act o

1964. A program of child development for four- and five-year-olds from low-income

homes, it targets children in what some educational psychologists call the critical period

in human development, and it focuses on mental and physical health,

welfare,

recreation

and remediation, as well as on intellectual development. Starting in 1965, Head Start has

had high enrollment, and research indicates that the program succeeds in acculturating

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 628

children to the culture of schooling.

The development of kindergartens has been characterized by a combination o

attempting to structure children’s entry into formal schooling and striving to address

social inequities. In the late 1960s, the work of Swiss psychologist Piaget and Italian

hysician and educator Montessori influenced the development of kindergartens as places

for children to discover and learn at their own pace. The conflict between behaviorist

models and more child-centered approaches to education has yielded various models o

kindergartens, but they are generally conceptualized, and often mandated, as necessary to

the initiation of children into formal schooling.

ee also:

children’s music

Further reading

Beatty B. (1995)

Preschool Education in America,

New Haven: Yale University Press.

Shapiro, M. (1983)

Child’s Garden,

State College: The Pennsylvania State University

Press.

ALISON COOK-SATHER

King, Billie Jean

b. 1943

Born Billie Jean Moffit, in Long Beach,

California,

King won six Wimbledon

championships, four US Open titles, was ranked the no. 1 women’s

tennis

player in the

world for five years and, through her struggle for gender equality, transformed women’s

sports. Her 1973 match against the fifty-five-year-old Bobby Riggs, the so-called “Battle

of the Sexes,” brought widespread attention to women athletes. King’s straight set

trouncing at the

Houston

Astrodome, in circus-like conditions, drew an estimated

television audience of 50 million. An inspiration to players like Martina Navratilova,

King led in the formation of the Virginia Slims professional tennis tour, started a

magazine

(WomenSports)

and established a women’s sports

foundation

ROBERT GREGG

King, Don

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boxing

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

b. 1929; d. 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most charismatic and influential leader in the US

civil

rights

struggle, 1954–68. His philosophy of non-violent direct action in resistance to

unjust laws was founded upon the teachings of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi and

refined through his own study of

religion

and

philosophy

at Morehouse College and

Boston University A middle-class, educated son of a southern black Baptist minister,

King was representative of the new generation of southern

African Americans

after the

Second World War who refused to submit to continued white oppression in the South.

His beliefs in non-violence and the moral necessity for equality became the strategy o

the entire movement.

King first emerged as a leader of the Movement in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in

1955–6. His primary base of operation was always the

South

. He was less successful in

attempting to apply his beliefs and tactics to the problems of African American

ghettos

the North. His philosophy galvanized white as well as black Americans, incorporating

both in his vision of a “beloved

community

” in which there was justice for all. His

eliefs, courage in the advocacy of them and his achievements in the face of violent

resistance by Southern white authority brought him vilification from conservatives at

home, but international acclaim abroad. While the FBI conducted investigations to

discredit King, the international Nobel Committee presented King with its Peace Prize in

1964.

King’s crowning moment was his “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on

Washington in August, 1963. His greatest victories were passage of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964 and the

Voting Rights Act

of 1965. King’s opposition to injustice, however, was

not confined by

region, race

class

. He reluctantly sacrificed much of his credibility

among many black as well as white followers and much of his influence in national

olitical circles by continuing to protest against poverty within the US and the unjust war

in Southeast Asia during the 1960s. The official disfavor such actions brought from the

highest levels of government and civil society made King more vulnerable to the forces

of reaction. He was assassinated in April 1968 by a white gunman in Memphis, TN while

participating in a garbage workers’ strike.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s articulation and advocacy of the ethical principles of his faith

and the political ideals upon which the United States was founded inspired the nation. His

murder for those same beliefs so shamed its people, black and white, that a majority

coalesced to create a national

holiday

in his honor. In 1986 the federal government

established January 15 as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the only national holiday to honor

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 630

a non-office-holding US civilian. King’s legacy however, transcends such

institutionalization. His moral philosophy and his advocacy of justice and equality for all

eople regardless of race, class or gender continue to inspire suffering peoples throughout

the world.

Further reading

Lewis, D.L. (1970)

Kïng, a Critical Biography,

New York: Praeger.

King, M.L., Jr. (1994)

Letter from a Birmingham Jail,

San Francisco: Harper.

ROBERT FRANCIS ENGS

King, Rodney

b. 1966

Victim of a savage beating by four white Los Angeles

police

officers who were caught

on video by a bystander. The tape, frequently shown on network

news

shows, created

widespread consensus about the officers’ guilt. The

California

jury’s May 1992 acquittal

of the officers shocked many. It was explained by the jury’s selection from the politically

conservative suburbs of

Los Angeles, CA

and the fact that it included no

African

Americans,

as well as artful defense strategies. Anger in South Central LA led to the

most violent

race riot

in American

history,

during which fifty-four people were killed,

thousands injured and property damaged in excess of 11 billion. Federal

civil-rights

charges were later brought against the officers and they were found guilty King

eventually disappeared from public view.

ROBERT GREGG

King, Stephen

b. 1947

Master of the American macabre in bestselling novels and chilling films. Born and

resident in Maine, which provides apparently innocent settings for some stories, King

specializes in nearly annual excursions to the horror beneath the normal, beginning with

his revisit to high-school proms laced with telekenisis in

Carrie

(1973). If you cannot

trust the prom queen, can you trust your

family

? No:

The Shining

(1976). Your car? No:

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Christine

(1983). The dog? No:

Cujo

(1981). Your fans? No:

Misery

(1987). King

seemed entrapped in his fictional universe when a driver severely injured him as he

walked beside the road in 1999. In 2000, he became a pioneer in e-publication.

GARY McDONOGH

Kingston, Maxine Hong

b. 1940

Novelist. Kingston’s vision of the struggles of

Chinese American

women of her

family,

seen through the prism of stories drawing on Chinese mythology in

The Woman

Warrior

(1976), became a breakthrough in wider American acceptance of

Asian

American

literature. Indeed, it became a widely used textbook in

high schools

and

colleges

. The sequel,

China Men

(1980), raised more political issues about historical

discrimination against Chinese. In the 1980s, Kingston became involved in a bitter debate

with Frank

Chin

over issues of authenticity and

assimilation

Asian American

literature. Her essay on fiction and identity

Tripmaster Monkey

(1989), was less

successful than her earlier works.

CINDY WONG

Kissinger, Henry

b. 1923

National security advisor and

Secretary of State

during the

Nixon

administration.

Born in Germany he fled Nazi persecution of the Jews in 1938, and, after the war,

ecame a foreign policy and defense studies expert at Harvard University. Kissinger

made a name for himself as a hawk, advocating a hard line towards the Soviet Union and

other communist nations. During the

Vietnam War,

he pushed for the bombing o

Cambodia, but also led the negotiations with the North Vietnamese—for which he would

receive the

Nobel Peace Prize

. In the year prior to his appointment as Secretary of State

in 1973, he advocated a policy of détente, and continued on this path until Gerald Ford’s

defeat in 1976 terminated his diplomatic career.

ROBERT GREGG

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 632

kitchen

In the typical American house, the kitchen is centrally located with direct relationships

with both living and dining areas, which allows for ease of service for both daily life and

occasional entertaining. This centrality has led to recent characterizations of the

kitchen—particularly the kitchen table—as the new hearth of the American

home

. This

phenomenon is reinforced by representations of the American

family

television,

including generations of

sitcoms

and

soap operas

in which many important family issues

are debated and resolved at the kitchen table.

In this construction of the traditional family the kitchen is largely associated with

female domesticity especially in the postwar

suburban

context. The role of

advertising

as well as the publication of

cookbooks

and

mass media

helped to define a mythic image

of American women surrounded by stove, oven and refrigerator—

erhaps with a pantry

laundry or storage nearby—which is still invoked by cultural conservatives. Servants,

however, were already treated as unusual—the woman ran her own appliances, budget

and household regime. This image also generated periodicals, such as

Redbook, Family

Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal

and

Better Homes & Gardens,

targeted at women and their

kitchens. Industry-related publications, such as

Bath & Kitchen

Metropolitan Home,

have also successfully marketed clean, bright kitchens as indicators of a healthy home life

and as coveted status symbols.

Kitchen spaces have also changed in the last five decades. The rise of the “island” in

kitchen design is associated with greater flexibility and changing habits in food

production and consumption. The late-twentieth-century phenomenon of singleparent

homes or families in which both parents work has also contributed to a shift in kitchen

design towards layouts that accommodate shorter meals, faster preparation and spaces

used primarily for entertaining. In urban settings, the restaurant kitchen may replace the

cultural associations of the domestic one, as indicated by an increase in exposed kitchens

and

comfort food

on menus.

The competitive appliance market also has been crafted to determine preferences and

ascribe status to the niche industry of kitchen remodeling. Basic stoves can be replaced

with elaborate grills; refrigerators with Sub-Zeros or additional freezers; and

dishwashers, trash compactors, disposals and other appliances converted to necessities.

Often undertaken as a substitute for a complete home renovation, upgrades in appliances

or changes in color schemes are generally seen as indicators of recent affluence or a

change in the dynamic of the family. In lieu of traditional architects and designers, the

aestheticization of the kitchen is being realized by home centers, spec-kitchen showrooms

and cultural figures such as Martha

Stewart

. This emphasis on the kitchen as the epitome

of the home has also generated a cultural counterpoint of more illicit behavior in the

Entries A-Z 633

kitchen, as represented by films such as

Fatal Attraction

(1987) or

9½ Weks

(1986).

JEANNIE J.KIM

HUNTER FORD TURA

Korean Americans

There was little

immigration

from Korea before the

Korean War

(1950–3), but

numbers increased with the arrival of military wives and adopted orphans. Between new

immigration laws in 1965 and 1990, however, the Korean American population increased

from 45,000 to 800,000, becoming the third-largest

Asian American

immigrant group,

after the

Chinese Americans

and the Filipinos. Moreover, by 1980, 81.9 percent of the

community

was foreign-

orn, many having fled the unstable economic and political

climate in South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.

While there are large Korean settlements in

Los Angeles, CA,

Queens (

New Yor

City, NY) and

Philadelphia, PA,

Korean Americans are scattered in many major cities

across the country including southern states, like

Texas

and Virginia. Many are highly

educated, including nurses, scientists and professionals.

Korean Americans are most visible to mainstream Americans as small-

usiness owners

in small grocers, liquor stores or laundries from Manhattan to South Central Los Angeles.

With limited capital from pooled resources, many immigrants took over stores in

economically depressed areas. Their recent immigration and lack of

neighborhood

ties

coupled with an image of exclusionary success fueled widely publicized conflicts

between

African Americans

and Korean Americans in the media, especially following

the 1992 Los Angeles riots where many Korean-owned stores were destroyed. Films like

o the Right Thing

(1989) and

Falling Down

(1993) have perpetuated stereotypes o

hard-working, yet selfish Korean store-owners. Both Koreans and African Americans are

now trying to solve these issues.

Korean Americans are the most Christian of the Asian Americans, even prior to

immigration, with over 50 percent of the national population Christian. Korean American

churches can be found throughout the US, linking them to American civic culture in ways

that are different from Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans. Indeed, Korean

Americans in economics, education and participation embody the American dream,

which has exacerbated the tensions with those native-

orn Americans who have seen its

promises crumbling.

ee also:

Asian Americans in cinema and television

Further reading

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 634

Light, I. and Bonacich, E. (1988)

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles

1965–1982,

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kim, E. and Yu, E.-Y. (1996)

East to America: Korean American Life Stories,

New

York: New Press.

CINDY WONG

Korean War

Often considered the forgotten war in American

history,

the Korean War arose amidst

fears of the spread of

communism

and the loss of

China

. It was called a “police action,”

undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations, without a formal declaration of war.

As such it was a prototype of the kinds of wars later engaged in by the United States

and/or

NATO

against Iraq and Yugoslavia, though with considerably less success.

At the end of the Second World War, Korea had been divided across the middle at the

38th parallel, with the Soviet Union controlling the North, and the United States

controlling the South. The conflict began on June 24, 1950, when North Korea surprised

Americans by invading the South. Although the

Truman

administration had recognized

Syngman Rhee’s nationalist regime in the South, it had only made public its intention to

defend the Philippines and Japan, thereby seeming to indicate that South Korea would be

left to fend for itself. But when the invasion occurred, Truman quickly responded by

sending the Seventh Fleet to the region and ordering General Douglas

MacArthur

repare his forces for combat. Truman sought and received international support from the

western European states (many of whom were hoping for American funding to aid

rebuilding their economies), the British Commonwealth and both the Philippines and

Thailand. With the Soviet Union boycotting the United Nations in support of China, the

world body passed a resolution committing troops to repel the North Koreans.

In September, after the fall of Seoul, General MacArthur began his counteroffensive,

landing troops at Inchon and cutting off communist forces in South Korea. The American

strategy was an unqualified success and within a month the North Korean army was all

ut destroyed, leaving UN forces in possession of the entire region south of the 38th

parallel.

Now convinced he was infallible, MacArthur decided to reunite Korea by continuing

north-wards. Truman and the State Department hesitated to support this, knowing that the

Chinese had promised to intervene if the Americans moved beyond the 38th parallel, but

McArthur assured them that the Chinese would not be able to cross the Yalu River. The

wave of 200,000 Chinese soldiers quickly proved him wrong and drove his UN forces

back into South Korea.

At this point, the Soviets proposed a truce to a receptive Truman, but MacArthur

wanted to escalate the conflict to blockade Chinese ports and bomb military installations

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