paraphrase 8 pages and make a correctly cited page
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KoreanFinal.docx1. Korean immigrants are considered to be the most entrepreneurial ethnicity, high rates of self-employment and success in small business ownership is evident. According to the article ‘Sources and Resources of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship’ by Professor Kim, there are several factors that encouraged and manipulated Korean immigrants to be entrepreneurs. Upon arrival to the United States, immigrants from non-English speaking countries like Korea has less human capitals and disadvantage to go into American labor market as employees because of cultural barriers and problems with non-transferable skills. Although, because solidarities are strong between Korean immigrants, kin networks were often mentioned as a core reason for Korean business success, “Until the mid-1970s, it was common for Korean immigrants to get a start in business and receive free room and board from their kin. Thus a husband and wife could save and establish their own store within two or three years.” (Park, 892). In addition to support from other Korean immigrants, in 1978, the limit on the amount of money immigrants could bring was lifted higher and according to the same article, “Since the beginning of the 1980s, with more cash in circulation in the Korean community and more people arriving from Korea, it became easier to organize a rotating credit association.” (Park, 894) Therefore, for Korean immigrant entrepreneurs in the Korean American community; there are resources like supports from kin networks, Rotating Credit Association and the increase of the limit on the amount of money immigrants could bring, which are the successful sources for entrepreneurship set up for aspiring Korean immigrants entrepreneurs.
2 A. Asian American parents, Koreans in particular are very zealous about their children’s success in pursuit of elite schools. According to article ‘The Pursuit of Elite High Schools and Colleges among Second-Generation Korean Americans’ by Kim, “A Chicago study found that eighty percent of Asian American parents, compared to thirty percent of white parents were willing to forego their financial security by selling their home to support their children’s education.” (Kim, 241) This statement emphasizes how important educational and career choices are for Asian Americans. As Professor stated, this notion of pursuing elite schools are becoming cultural explanation, Korean community judge and reflect badly on their parenting skills if the children fail academically and ultimately, it is the parents who ‘lose face’ in the community. Therefore, additional schooling is provided such as cram schools or ‘Hagwons’ so their children will not fall behind academically. Since parents’ generations are more marginalized than current generation, the education and good educational performance are used to counter the perceptions of blocked mobility or discrimination, seeing education as possible option for upward mobility. Professor Kim also stated in class that some possible reasons for Korean parents zealous pursuit of elite school has its roots in the ‘education fever’ in South Korea. According to the article by Kim and lecture notes from Professor Park, for Korean American family and community, getting into elite schools and working in prestigious career field means obtaining a high social status within the Korean American community and parents not only gain high social status within the community but also provide children generation advantage in the future that is presumably later marginalized with better chance for upward mobility that immigrant or older generations didn’t have.
2 B. Korean Americans are perceived as the ‘model minorities’ in the United States, this is due to exceptional academic achievements by Korean Americans as a whole. Although, not every Korean Americans go through the same educational experience as Korean Americans who are perceived as the model minorities. According to the article ‘A Structural Analysis of Success and Failure of Asian Americans: A Case of Korean Americans in Urban Schools’ and ‘The Other’ Story of Model Minorities’ by Lew, Lew delineates how variability of socioeconomic backgrounds affect parental strategies and academic achievement among Korean American children. Factors like socioeconomic status of Korean American parents and children’s relationship with their parents or with the co-ethnic network plays vital role in determining children’s educational experiences. Korean American youth with good socioeconomic background follows the path of model minority and attend magnet high schools as well as Hagwans and subsequently to elite colleges. On the other hand, lower socioeconomic background youth attend their neighborhood school with limited institutional resources, and no time to study outside school due to financial issues in household so most of them subsequently drops out from high school. According to Lew, “Some of the Korean high school dropouts, as a result of their limited socioeconomic backgrounds, had to resort to joining the military in order to continue their education.” (Lew, 384) For some lower socioeconomic youth, the determination to continue their education is high due to their influences from parents and ethnic community but for the rest, they just give up because of financial issues. Wide range in educational experience is merely determined by socioeconomic backgrounds because it is proven in the articles that vast majority of Korean Americans who are perceived as the model minorities are coming from good socioeconomic backgrounds, and limited socioeconomic background youth’s educational experience is varies by different capitals. Some are so determined that they work part-time job while attending high school to continue their education; some drops out of high school because of conflict with parents or teachers, etc. Therefore, the clearest explanation for the reason of wide range in educational experiences by ‘model minority’ Korean American youth is due to socioeconomic background of their parents.
3. Strength of the first article ‘Shifting Boundaries within Second-Generation Korean American Churches’ by Kim is that this article compares inter-generational Korean Americans’ perspective on Korean church. The article explains that first/ immigrant generation preferred the Korean church so they could build closer ties with other Korean immigrants. Second generation on the other hand, “left the ethnic church because for them, assimilation into mainstream society was of utmost importance.” Although, for third-generation, they have completely different perspectives, “The third generation, however didn’t need to prove that they were American. They could practice and embrace their cultural beliefs and practices without a threat of being labeled un-American.” (Kim, 100) The author Kim displays, intergenerational differences in perspectives on Korean church, which is interesting findings and considered the strength of this article. Weakness of this article is that it only touched little bit on White people’s experience in Asian American churches. If this article gave more information about other ethnic American’s perspective it would improve because there will be more comparison on different perspectives on Asian/ Korean churches from different point of views.
Strength of the second article, ‘Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture’ by Min and Dae is that this article examines the truth of 1.5 and second-generation Korean American protestants failure to preserve and transmit their cultural traditions through religion. Korean English Language congregations are more popular among 1.5 and second-generations and according to the article, “Korean English language congregations for 1.5 and second-generation Korean American Protestants have almost entirely eliminated Korean cultural component from worship services and other socio-cultural activities” (Min and Dae, 263) this example is the strength of this article because it gives the true insight into differences between immigrant generation’s and 1.5/ second-generation’s perspectives on preserving the Korean culture and traditions through religion. The weakness of this article is that this article should have discussed more in-depth about why it is difficult for 1.5 and second-generation to go to congregations in Korean immigrant church and the article states “90% of post-college Korean Americans are no longer attending church” (Min and Dae, 267) but there is no specific answer to this outcome.
4 A. The Los Angeles Civil Unrest in 1992 was very violent and destructive event that still traumatizes many Korean Americans. Exploring Grace Lee’s new multi-media project ‘K-Town 92’ and ‘Changing the Business Plan: Korean Merchants Try to Reintegrate into South Central community’ by Professor Park; in both works, experience of Korean merchants from the Unrest is described. In one of Grace Lee’s interviews, the interviewee Lee displayed truth about the mainstream media, which omitted information about the Unrest. Mainstream media in that documentary only portrayed tensions between Koreans and blacks, even though police didn’t show up at the night of the Unrest and perpetuated bad images and tensions “That image of armed Korean merchants protecting their business is the lasting image and one of the only image that survived the riots, I feel that what the mainstream was able to afford Koreans as far as characterization…” Lee. The severe reparation of Korea town’s businesses and death/ injuries could have been eased if police showed up to the riot, instead of protecting wealthier neighborhood like Beverly Hills. In the article by Professor Park, the statistics of financial damage for Korean merchants are “The average financial loss for storekeeper was $179,045 with individual losses ranging from $2,000 to $175,000. Only 35% of Korean American owners were insured and of those, many policies offered limited to no riot coverage.” (Park, 241) Not only being oppressed by the mainstream media but damages also came from financial damages were experienced by Korean merchants. Some Korean merchants suffered PTSD, “… the Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Center in LA treated 730 Korean American victims…” (Park, 241) After the Unrest, Korean merchants hire Blacks and Latinos as “cultural brokers” instead of geographic reason to hire them. Korean immigrant merchants developed a whole new process of business practices in the aftermaths of the Unrest, constructions of race and ethnicity reflected varied feelings not only towards Latinos and Blacks but also towards Whites indicating a sense of betrayal.
4 B. Since the Unrest in 1992, Korean Americans’ racial relations with African Americans and Latinos transformed positively, along with a change in racial hierarchy and cartography among those ethnicity groups. Two assigned articles, ‘The Racial Cartography of Post-Unrest LA’ and ‘An Analysis of Latino-Korean Relations in the Workplace: Latino Perspectives in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest’ by Professor Park, analyzes racial relations between both Korean-Black and Korean-Latino. Before the Unrest, racial cartography indicated that African Americans had lower positions compared with Koreans and Latinos. Asian Americans held the highest position after whites. In both articles, Professor Park introduces theory of “Four degrees of exclusion/ segregation; race, class, culture and citizenship” (Park, 363). Those four factors are interwoven in hierarchical power relations among groups and evidenced in the processes of social inequality and conflict. An interviewee from the first article, comments “ Those poverty-stricken former peasants won’t treat Blacks with respect and some of the Korean immigrant merchants are fake white” (Park, 363) for African Americans, Korean immigrant merchants appeared different culturally and physically, which reinforced images of stereotypes associated with “Nativist White sentiment”.
Even though, Blacks were physically closer to Korean immigrant merchants in terms of where they lived and their working conditions, they felt more distant from them.
As ‘four degrees of exclusion’ changed to ‘degrees of inclusion’ over time, solidarities were made between Koreans and African Americans because of shared experience of living condition and Korean immigrant merchant started to hire more Black people. After the Unrest, according to the first article, “ … tensions between Korean business owners and African Americans and Latinos, many Koreans have hired Blacks and Latinos as employees, leading to the development of certain alliances and affinities. (Park, 348) Second article analyzes more deeply on Korean-Latino relations before and after the Unrest. Not just Koreans but Latinos too are also victims of the 1992 Unrest thus there are shared solidarities being victims. Despite some negative experiences, Koreans and Latinos had strong ties before the Unrest due to Korean immigrant’s high dependency on Latino employees. According to the second article, organizations like KIWA promoted “class solidarity across racial and ethnic boundaries as a matter of social justice” and “Coalition building has emerged as the most viable option for Los Angele’s rebuilding process after the Unrest. For instance, in 1994, a coalition of Korean American organizations came to aid of 575 hotel union workers predominantly Latinos” (Park, 160), these coalition campaigns provided Latinos with a broader range of experiences with Koreans, which made their ties stronger and Korean-Latino relationship of patron-client relations improved as the result.
5. In week 8, Professor Park invited a guest speaker, Alice Lee, an Immigrant Rights Youth Organizer from Korean Resource Center. Lee talked about KRC’s activism on two important Acts for undocumented minors in the United States, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals also known as DACA and Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, Dream Act. Lee stated in her presentation that approximately 1.1 million undocumented minors resided in 2010 and the number is continuing to grow. Acts like DACA and DREAM Act allowed working permit and residency in the US, which helped many undocumented minors. Lee delineated that even though majority of DACA participants are from Latin America, there are also many Korean undocumented immigrants. KRC not only provide social services and assistance for undocumented/ stateless immigrants but also rally and protest against removal of DACA by partnering up with other community organizations to serve justice for DACA and DREAM Act participants. KRC is non-profit organization and provision of organization like this helps undocumented immigrants so much because just like Lee said, those undocumented immigrants are scared and worried about their status and there are no places to discuss this issues with so KRC’s involvement for undocumented immigrant is very significant in the community.
Works Cited:
· Kim, Dae Young. 2011. The Pursuit of Elite High Schools and Colleges among Second-Generation Korean Americans. Development and Society 40 (2): 225-259.
· Kim, Sharon. 2010. Shifting Boundaries within Second-Generation Korean American Churches. Sociology of Religion 71 (1): 98-122.
· Lew, Jamie. 2007. A Structural Analysis of Success and Failure of Asian Americans: A Case of Korean Americans in Urban Schools. Teachers College Record 109 (2): 369-390.
· Min, Pyong Gap and Dae Young Kim. 2005. Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture: Korean Protestants in the U.S. Sociology of Religion 66 (3): 263-282.
· Park, Kyeyoung. 2012. An Analysis of Latino-Korean Relations in the Workplace: Latino Perspectives in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest. Amerasia Journal 38 (1): 143-169.
· Park, Kyeyoung, 6. Changing the Business Plan: Korean Merchants Try to Reintegrate into South Central Community. In LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos after Civil Unrest.
· Park, Kyeyoung. The Racial Cartography of Post-Unrest LA
