Korean Americans

SIGNIFICANCE: Korean Americans are one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the United States. Korean American businesses and churches have become increasingly common, and members of other American ethnic groups frequently come into contact with Koreans.

Koreans first began settling in the United States in the 1950s, when American servicemen serving in Korea returned home with brides and war orphans. Korean migration to the United States continued at very low levels, however, until the US Congress changed immigration laws in 1965, giving Asians the same opportunity as Europeans to settle in the United States. This triggered an almost immediate increase in Korean immigrants. Although only 10,179 Koreans immigrated from 1961 to 1965, the number jumped to 25,618 in the next half-decade, from 1966 to 1970. As more Koreans made their homes in the United States, more followed. During the period from 1986 to 1990, 172,851 Koreans immigrated. By 2022, according to Pew Research Center, over 1,800,000 Americans identified as wholly or partly Korean.

After the 1965 change in immigration law, Korean immigrants were not only more numerous but also more likely to come as entire family groups. With large numbers of Koreans in the United States, they began to form Korean American communities instead of settling as isolated individuals. Korean businesses and Korean churches began to appear in American cities and suburbs.

California is home to the largest portion of Koreans in the United States—in fact, three in ten reside in Los Angeles as of 2022. California is followed by New York, which was home to twelve percent of Korean Americans in 2022. New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia also had large Korean populations.

Korean Businesses

As new immigrants, Koreans often have few job opportunities in the United States. However, Koreans do have a strong tradition of helping one another, and this has contributed to the growth of Korean-owned businesses in the United States. In the rotating credit system known as the kye, groups of Koreans pool money to make interest-free loans to group members.

Changes in the US economy also encouraged the development of Korean businesses. During the 1970s and 1980s, as poverty became increasingly concentrated in American inner-city areas, many small business owners began closing or selling stores in these areas. New Korean immigrants, who had limited English-language abilities and few contacts to find jobs in established US corporations, moved into ownership of small businesses. As of 2024, there were over two hundred thousand Korean-owned businesses in the United States, mainly in the sectors of retail and repair, maintenance, personal, and laundry services.

Korean businesses have become the basis for many local and national Korean organizations. The Korean American Grocers’ Association is one of the most important of the national business-based organizations, with local groups in most areas that have substantial Korean populations. The Korean Dry Cleaning and Laundry Association is another national Korean American organization based on small-business ownership.

The Korean pattern of employment has had consequences for the relations between Korean Americans and members of other groups. Koreans are often highly dependent on one another for financial and social support, sometimes creating the impression that they isolate themselves from the rest of American society. They tend not to live in the inner-city neighborhoods where they own their businesses, leading to cultural misunderstandings and conflicts between Korean business owners and their customers, many of whom are African American.

Korean Churches

Although Korean culture is traditionally Confucian and Buddhist, numerous Christian congregations, mostly Protestant, exist in South Korea. It is estimated that about seventy percent of Korean Americans are Christians and that the overwhelming majority of them are members of Korean churches. By the 1990s, there were more than two thousand Korean churches in the United States. In 2018, the Korean Daily reported over 4,000 Korean churches. Churches have become social centers for many Korean Americans, places where they can come together with others who speak their language and share their culture.

Korean American churches are places of worship, but they fulfill many other needs as well. Church members provide one another with information on available employment and housing. Language classes at churches teach English to new immigrants and Korean to US-born children. The churches help to pass Korean culture on to children who may never have visited the home country of their parents.

Koreans and American Society

Many Korean American business owners do not pass on their businesses to their US-born children. Instead, these children are typically encouraged to achieve high educational levels and obtain professional jobs in US corporations. Over time, then, the distinctive employment patterns of Korean Americans are likely to disappear. Korean Americans have also shown increasing rates of marriage with members of other racial and ethnic groups, although as of 2010, the proportion of Korean Americans identifying as one or more other ethnic groups as well was still less than one quarter.

Bibliography

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Hurh, Won Moo. The Korean Americans. Greenwood Press, 1998.

Kim, Heewon. "There Are 4454 Korean Churches Across the US." The Korean Daily, 24 Jan. 2018, www.koreadailyus.com/4454-korean-churches-across-us/. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

"Korean Americans: A Survey Data Snapshot." Pew Research Center, 4 Aug. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/2024/08/06/korean-americans-a-survey-data-snapshot. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

Min, Pyong Gap, editor. Koreans in North America: Their Experiences in the Twenty-First Century. Lexington Books, 2013.

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Yoo, Grace J., and Barbara W. Kim. Caring Across Generations: The Linked Lives of Korean American Families. New York University Press, 2014.

Young, Jacob Yongseok. Korean, Asian, or American? The Identity, Ethnicity, and Autobiography of Second-Generation Korean American Christians. University Press of America, 2012.