The crux of this study lies in the consideration of the manner in which rights to citizenship are granted or denied, and in which the ensuing educational policy toward an ethnic minority influences identity formation. In this article the author first introduces a brief background of the two ethnic groups, ethnic Chinese in Korea and ethnic Koreans in China, and second, presents and discusses an informal survey on their perception of who they are and why. Finally, the author hopes to shed some light upon the ways in which citizenship and the nation-building process influence the identity formation of ethnic minority groups, by comparing and contrasting the cases of the Republic of Korea (henceforth called Korea or South Korea) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). (Contains 2 tables and 13 notes.)