"This dispute is over whether nationhood is a product of nationalist political mobilization of uniquely modern dimensions, or, conversely, whether the prior existence of ethnicity in fact explains much of modern nationality. The issue is particularly complicated in the Korean context, where there exists substantial overlap between the levels of race, ethnicity, and nation. When Koreans shouted, 'We are one' in Seoul's city hall plaza and in Los Angeles' Staples Center, they meant that Koreans are one race, one ethnicity, and one nation, regardless of their current legal citizenship, place of residence, or political beliefs. Although race is understood as a collectivity defined by innate and immutable phenotypic and genotypic characteristics and ethnicity is generally regarded as a cultural phenomenon based on a common language and history, Koreans have not historically differentiated between the two. Instead, race has served as a marker that strengthened ethnic identity, which in turn was instrumental in defining the nation. Race, ethnicity, and nation were conflated, and this is reflected in the multiple uses of the term minjok, the most widely used term for 'nation', which can also refer to 'ethnie' or 'race'. What accounts for the rise and establishment of such a strong sense of ethnic national identity of racialized notion of nation held among Koreans? As in the general literature on the study of nations and nationalisms, there exist several contending views to explain the origins of the Korean ethnic nation."