Korean American Study

1. Korean immigrants came to be the most entrepreneurial ethnicity through various factors, including Korean traditional culture, human capital theory, language and culture barriers, securing labor and business information, and the development of bank loans. Korean immigrants began to make small business as a means of self-employment; due to the language barriers, they were unable to attain jobs and had to create their own to survive in the the American labor market. Also, “non-transferable skills and education contribute[d] to their disadvantaged status” and the Koreans’ unwillingness to work for low-income jobs made the them turn to small business ownerships (892-93).

The early immigrants were usually middle-class status and had enough financial stability to create businesses, whether it be from personal savings, borrowing money from family members, etc. However, after the increase number of immigrants around the 1970’s and 80’s, it became “easier to organize a rotating credit association (RCA), or kye,” according to the article “Sources and Resources of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship” (893). Since the 1990’s, Korean entrepreneurs began to rely more on bank loans (increase from 2% to 19%) to start up their businesses, creating Korean banks and financial institutions in the United States, that provided more credits for Korean immigrants (894).

The changing United States’ economy proved to be a beneficial factor as well. The opportunity structure of increasing supply and demand, and increase in import-export trade facilitated this movement. Korean immigrants came to America in search for the “American Dream” and economical success, but faced difficulties on the way the impeded their aspirations, such as cultural and language barriers. However, Korean culture is heavily dependent on businesses, and so these immigrants were knowledgable about businesses and how to utilize certain things to their advantage. Through all the aforementioned factors, Koreans were able to set up their own businesses in large numbers, and stand as the most entrepreneurial ethnicity.

2a. Korean parents expect their 1.5 and second-generation Korean American children to do well in school so they could be accepted to elite colleges, and secure a successful job after graduation. They correlate high educational achievement with success in the future and, therefore, many Korean parents willingly sacrifice their time and invest money in their child’s education. In the Korean community, people perceive the actions and attitudes of a person to reflect those of their parents’, and for this reason, SKGA children feel pressure to perform well in school so their parents do not feel ashamed or embarrassed of them.

Not only do 1.5 and second generation Korean American students’ desire and drive to attain high levels of education play a factor in their overall performance, but the parents’ socioeconomic status also plays a crucial part. DY Kim’s article, “The Pursuit of Elite High Schools and Colleges among Second-Generation Korean Americans,” mentions that their is a “relationship between parents’ socioeconomic status and second-generation’s educational achievements” (228). In summary, the children of middle-class parents tends to do better than their low-income counterparts. This is because the middle-class parents are more adept in providing educational resources, such as “hagwons” or “cram schools” (241), and “ shaping [the children’s] educational environments via strategic residential choices that take the quality of schools into account” (239). “Hagwons,” similar to after schools, provide educational learning, but can be quite costly. Therefore, only the parents with enough money could send their children to these institutions, where students are continuously taught the importance of educational success.

Pressure to execute educational excellency also comes from the Korean community, such as “ethnic churches” and “media outlets” (244). Churches provide “both religious and social functions for Korean immigrants, the church serves as a conduit for disseminating not only educational information but also values and outlooks toward education to church members” (244). Media outlets, such as newspapers, radio stations, and television advertisement, continuously air topics on educational attainment, compelling parents to enforce more pressure onto their children so they could get into elite colleges. Through these aforementioned mechanisms, the Korean American family and community plays a significant role in the student’s views on educational success and prestigious career choices, such as “medicine, law, business, engineering, etc” (Professor Park slides).

2b. Asians are often viewed as a homogeneous group that strives for high academic achievement and entrepreneurial success; however, important factors that effect this “success” are easily overlooked. In the study analyzed by Jamie Lew, in “A Structural Analysis of Success and Failure of Asian Americans: A Case of Korean Americans in Urban Schools,” second-generation Korean American high school students are split into two categories— high school drop outs and magnet students. The two categories of students experience a drastic difference in their educational life and are distinguished by their parent’s socioeconomic background, relationship with their parents and the community, availability of social and economical resources, etc.

SKGA high school students from middle- or upper-class parents tend do better in school than the students from lower-class families. This is because the wealthier parents are able to send their children to prestigious magnet schools and are “more likely to send their children to private tuition-based after-school academies in order to provide them with additional schooling and college counseling,” such as “hagwons” (372). On the other hand, low-income parents do not have the financial resources to send their children to magnet schools, thus many students from low-income families attend urban schools that are “wrought with limited institutional resources” (371). Without proper guidance and someone to look up to, the students were more likely to drop-out and work minimum wage jobs.

Also, close ethnic ties between the community and family greatly affects a student’s performance in school. According to the article, students from magnet high schools held close relationships with their parents, and their community, such as religiously attending the same church for consecutive number of years, whereas students who dropped out of high school often do not keep in contact with their parents and/or moved from on church to another frequently (377-79). Going to the same church allows the student to learn the Korean language and the culture, learn the importance of academic achievement from their peers, and creates ethnic ties. In addition, the parents of the SKGA’s discuss different school options, techniques to advance their children’s educational skills, and attain other crucial information regarding education. Unfortunately, the students who were not exposed to these critical experiences from the community and restricted by the limitation of their parent’s social and economic ability, ultimately led most to drop out of high school and have a drastically different educational experience than the SKGA students from middle-class Korean parents.

3. In Sharon Kim’s, “Shifting Boundaries within Second Generation Korean American Churches,” she mentions an emerging group of “hybrid” churches that are in between ethnic and Evangelical churches. In those new “hybrid” churches, she discusses the pros and cons, the boundaries and limitations, the opinions of the pastors for 3 different categories, or “visions” as Kim puts it. The three visions consist of mono-ethnic, pan-ethnic, and multiracial churches. The strength of this article is that it is very diverse and covers a lot of topic for each “vision” church. Also, the incorporation of interview questions and responses from the pastors from each church provided insightful information about the thoughts and values they have. For example, through the responses, you can get a sense of how much of an impact ethnic identity plays a part in religion. A weakness is that there was not enough evidence or data, or in-depth explanation of how these surveys were conducted, whereas the second article had too much.

The second article is called “Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture” by Pyong Gap Min and Dae Young Kim. A weakness in this article was that the authors provided too much statistics and data that it was difficult to read. Too many numbers became distracting and may cause confusion among the readers; however, they provided a few tables, which made it easier to process most of the information. The tables made the authors’ points clearer in a neatly, organized fashion. Another weakness was that I felt the article was too black and white, and did not cover the grey area in between. I think this article could be improved with further analysis with all the heaping information they acquired. Nonetheless, it is reassuring that the information provided in this article are factual and have solid evidence, and that they are not just speculations. This article also included responses of pastors from different congregations on the topic of emphasizing or not emphasizing cultural ethnicity in churches. An improvement could be for the authors to analyze the aftermath and consequences of the study, which is what will be the outcome of SKGAs increasingly separating ethnicity from church activities?

4a. The Civil Unrest of 1992 broke out as a result of the acquittal of the four LAPD police officers for the Rodney King beating. The Black community demanded justice for the excessive beating of the unarmed Rodney King, and did so through looting mostly Korean owned stores and rioting in areas including Koreatown and South Central Los Angeles. Due to the lack of police force protection, the Korean store owners took action into their own hands to defend and protect themselves and their stores from destruction. In Grace Lee’s media project “K-TWON ’92,” portrayal of the chaotic riot were shown, including interviews from the Korean store owners themselves and members of the Black community, both expressing their condemnation of the situation. In one particular interview, a middle-aged Korean lady relayed her experiences of the unrest, saying that her store was attacked and had to sneak out in a van, driven by one of the Latino employees, in fear that the rioting African Americans would attack them.

There was a disproportional number of attacks to the Korean community. According the Kyeyoung’s article, “Changing the Business Plan: Korean Merchants Try to Reintegrate into the South LA Community,” almost half of the material and property losses ($400 million) were property owned by Koreans (238). Many Korean shop owners “suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder” due to the painful and shocking events that unfolded, and the majority thought about leaving the area (241). As a result of the riot, Korean immigrant merchants in South Central ideas of race transformed, became more aware of the inequalities, began participating in political affairs, etc. The African American community demanded change, and the Korean community obliged by changing their “hiring practices” by hiring more African Americans than the Latino counterparts (266). Also, “Korean American community learned the importance of participation in political and social processes,” and immediately took action to involve themselves in political affairs to protect the rights of Korean people (274). Lastly, the Koreans became more aware of the racial injustice and inequality, not only to Koreans, but also to African Americans and Latinos, in the community.

4b. Korean Americans’ relations with Blacks and Latinos emanated long before the Civil Unrest transpired in 1992. The majority Korean immigrants between 1960’s and 1980’s opened up small businesses, employing Blacks and Latinos as a source of cheap labor. The sudden influx of Korean immigrant merchants in the South Central area of Los Angeles displeased many African Americans, saying that they were exploiting their resources and have not suffered enough as a minority, like they did long ago. “African American customers complain about their quasi class relations: they experience exploitation, domination, and surveillance, as well as having access only to high-priced, low-quality goods and enduring poor treatment from the merchants” and therefore targeted mostly Korean stores in the unrest as a means of protest (Latino-Korean, 145). Moreover, Latinos also felt that “employer-employee interactions” were unfair and condescending, which made them feel similarly to the Black community (Latino-Korean, 148).

After the unrest, Korean employers began changing their attitudes and tried to comply with the needs of the Blacks and Latinos. In one of Park’s interviews, a Latino named Antonio expressed the changing attitudes of Korean merchants toward Latinos— “better effort to communicate with Latinos, a more willingness to listen, and less willingness to dismiss us or ignore us” (Latino-Korean, 159). Also, the way Latinos viewed Koreans after the unrest changed; they felt sympathetic towards Korean merchants. Likewise, some African Americans felt an affinity or indifference towards the Koreans, probably due to the efforts imposed by them to alleviate the problematic issues; the Koreans did so by hiring more African American workers. One Black interviewee said that the unrest “seemed to be perceived as an outlet for societal woes … or would somehow improve things or cause possessive changes in their community” (Cartography, 379). Through efforts such as transforming hiring practices, creating labor unions to protect the minority group (Black, Latinos, and Koreans), and coming together as a community to rebuild the destroyed neighborhood, the relations between the minority group slowly, and is continuously, transforming into a more peaceful one.

5a. Alice Lee, an Immigrants Rights Youth Organizer from the Korean Resource Center, came to our class to talk about important immigrant youth rights and advocacy transpiring in current events. The Korean Resource Center, or KRC, is an organization that seeks to help and improve the lives of minorities, including Korean Americans, low-income families, and others living in Southern California as well. A key component of KRC is to engage in local communities and empower the individuals through education, culture, events, etc. On the KRCLA website, it states that “All people, regardless of immigration status, have a right to quality education, good jobs, health care, public benefits, affordable housing, healthy environments, and human dignity.” This is exactly what our guest speaker values and is aiming to do; Lee’s specific area consists of helping the immigrant youths.

KRC supports the values of the DACA policy and DREAM Act. Although the DREAM Act bill has not passed, there are still ongoing efforts to make it happen. DREAM Act is the proposed bill that provides legal status to immigrant youths or immigrants who grew up in the United States since an early age; the individuals who would have been eligible are fittingly called DREAMers who are advocating for the passing of the act. In contrast, DACA does not provide legal status, but defers deportation of young illegal immigrants. Overall, these two are fighting for similar causes, which are equal rights and opportunities for illegal immigrants, and the RCA is conducting events and organizations to support this cause. Lee’s empowering message and her evident passion for this issue influenced me to look into possible activities that I could participate in to help youths who are immigrants get equal rights and opportunities as citizens. I hope that others would have felt inspired to take action, because every single person matters and can make a difference in their community.

Works Cited

Kim, Dae Young. “The Pursuit of Elite High Schools and Colleges among Second-Generation Korean Americans.” Development and Society: Vol. 40 No. 2. 2011, p 225-59.

Kim, Dae Young and Pyong Gap Min. “Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture: Korean Protestants in the U.S.” Sociology of Religion: Oxford University Press, Vol. 66, No 3. 2005, p 263-82.

Kim, Sharon. “Shifting Boundaries within SecondGeneration Korean American Churches.” Sociology of Religion. 2010, p 98-122.

Lee, Grace. “K-TOWN ’92.” LeeLee Films, Inc., 2017.

Lew, Jamie. “A Structural Analysis of Success and Failure of Asian Americans: A Case of Korean Americans in Urban Schools.” Teachers College Board: Columbia University, p 369-90.

Park, Kyeyoung. “An Analysis of Latino-Korean Relations in the Workplace: Latino Perspectives in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest.” Amerasia Journal. 2012, p 143-69.

Park, Kyeyoung. “Changing the Business Plan: Korean Merchants Try to Reintegrate into the South LA Community.” LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos after Civil Unrest. p. 231-80.

Park, Kyeyoung. “The Racial Cartography of Post-Unrest LA.” p 348-93.

Park, Kyeyoung. “Sources and Resources of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship.” Critical Sociology: Sage Publications. pp. 891-96