Koreatown

The flow of immigrants into America has always been a theme that has woven itself throughout the existence of the United States. Whether European immigrants or Asian immigrants, the continual flow of foreigners to the United States has provided the nation with a plethora of mixed cultures and ethnicities. One of the most predominant of these ethnicities on the West Coast is that of the Koreans.

Outside of Korea, Koreatown in Los Angeles, California, houses the largest population of Koreans anywhere in the world. Koreans first began to migrate to the United States in the early 1900s, and in 1920 and 1940, Los Angeles saw populations of 1,680 and 1,700, respectively. Various immigration laws passed during 1924 helped to close the doors to Asian immigration to the United States, but by the year 1965, new immigration laws had completely overturned the previous statute. Beginning in 1965, and partly resulting from the various civil rights movements of the era, America reopened her borders to twenty thousand persons per Asian country per year. This resulted in a high rate of immigration, not only from Korea but from China, Japan, and various other Asian countries as well.

By the year 1985,11percentofallAsiansinAmerica were Korean, a big jump from 1960's 1 percent. As a result, LosAngeles served as home for close to 200,000 Koreans by the mid-1980s. As early as 1975, however, Newsweek magazine was publishing stories regarding a five-square-mile section of the Olympic district in Los Angeles that was inundated with Korean immigrants, and it dubbed the new community “Koreatown.” The publication also reported that by the mid-1970s, there were close to 70 KoreanAmerican churches, 12 Korean Buddhist temples, 100 nonprofit organizations (i.e., youth clubs and business associations), and more than 1,400 Korean-owned businesses located in the tiny district located next to South Central LosAngeles.

The Korean Chamber of Commerce, which came into being in Los Angeles during the 1970s, lobbied for Koreans in the Olympic district to share their ethnic identity, print business signs in the native han'gul alphabet, and pursue an original Korean culture. Immigrants and Korean businesses flocked to the Olympic district, and by the early 1990s, the Korean population in Koreatown, Los Angeles, had swelled to 350,000.

Although Koreatown is heralded as a community rich in cultural heritage, there are still problems that present themselves to the locals of Koreatown. Few Koreans tend to venture outside of their small, established community in down town Los Angeles, and therefore there is a high population of Koreans who do not speak enough English to survive outside of Koreatown; some Koreans do not speak any English at all. In most cases, it is the older generations that are affected by this lack of communication between them and the outside world, and thus for these generations there also tends to be a lack of assimilation and acceptance into “American” culture. Younger generations of Koreans, [Page 367]many of whom speak fluent English and, ironically, struggle with their own native tongue, are beginning to venture outside of the Olympic district walls. Korean lawyers, doctors, real estate investors, bankers, and educators are seeing a rise in numbers in their profession outside of Los Angeles, but the majority of businesses inside Koreatown remains dominated by liquor and grocery stores, restaurants, garment vendors, gas stations, and electronics stores.

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