Talk:North Korean immigration to the United States

Merge proposal

Think should merge this page into Korean Americans. Significant topic overlap, neither articles are long enough to merit a split. This article also has a lot of style issues, but not worth going into in this discussion.

@Ellisdou notifying article creator seefooddiet (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and would support merging parts of this article into both Korean Americans and North Korean defectors, as mentioned below by you. Sarsenet (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of this is out of scope and belongs on the North Korean defectors article. A lot of the "Background" section and the entire "Migration" and "Famous North Korean Defectors" sections. That leaves...almost nothing. This topic might be notable, but as it is the article's contents should be merged elsewhere. Toadspike [Talk] 10:38, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the proposal to merge the articles for several reasons. The articles on Korean Americans and North Korean defectors cover distinct topics with unique historical and social contexts. Merging them would dilute the specificity and clarity of each subject. Each article provides detailed information relevant to its specific topic, and combining them could result in a loss of depth, making it harder for readers to find focused information on either subject. Historical records indicate that North Koreans arrived during and after the Korean War, which is an important nuance that warrants separate coverage. Additionally, North Korean defectors represent a very small fraction of Korean Americans, less than 0.1%. Most Korean Americans are from South Korea, and this distinction should be clearly maintained to avoid confusion. Therefore, it is more appropriate to keep the articles separate and provide cross-references where necessary to maintain clarity and depth of information.

The historically steady and substantial inflow of immigration from Korea has accelerated the growth of the Korean population in the U.S. Since 1970, when it was about 70,000, the Korean population has increased more than fifteen-fold to 1.07 million in the year 2000 (1.23 million when including Koreans who are part Asian, and mixed race).

Forty-four percent of Koreans live in the West, compared to 22 percent of the general population. Nevertheless, the geographic distribution has changed significantly since the 1960s, as Koreans have been quicker than other APAs to disperse themselves across the wider regions of the U.S. Travelers are likely to find at least one or more Korean churches with a sign written in Hangul characters in most metropolitan cities in America. Most remarkable is the increase in the numbers of Korean Americans in the South, which grew 46 percent between 1990 and 2000.

Nonetheless, Koreans as a whole are still concentrated in just a few large metropolises. Southern California leads the way. More than a quarter million Korean Americans live in the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County-San Bernardino-Ventura metro area. Next is the conglomerate encompassing New York City and the surrounding northern New Jersey, southwest Connecticut, and eastern Pennsylvania area. Forty percent of all Koreans in the United States are found in these two regions.

Korean churches, Korean supermarkets, and many other types of Korean firms serving mainly their own ethnic clienteles are found in these areas. Koreans also constitute a significant minority of the resident population in several cities in these areas.

Koreans are entrepreneurs par excellence. Surveys conducted in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta confirm that about one-third of Korean immigrant households engage in a self-owned business. In the 1970s, a typical newly-arrived family would start a small business after a few years of work on assembly lines or with maintenance companies. Nowadays, many start business shortly after arrival thanks to the strong economy and liberalization of foreign exchange laws in Korea.

The 1997 U.S. Economic Census confirmed many of the anecdotal pictures of Korean business patterns that have been reported in Korean newspapers. With more than 155,000 businesses, Koreans rank third among APAs, after the Chinese and Indians. But their tendency to enter into business is one of the highest among all minority ethnic/racial groups. For instance, the rate of Korean business ownership is 71 percent higher than their share of the population, highest of all the major Asian ethnic groups.

Why do Koreans concentrate in small business? Potential profitability is one obvious reason. But the more important reason is that many Korean immigrants face status inconsistency and the ensuing erosion of self-esteem after arriving in the U.S. A majority of Korean immigrants earned college degrees and held professional jobs before moving to America. Language difficulties and unfamiliarity with American culture prevent many from finding a satisfactory job commensurate with their education and work experience. Their options are: 1) work in a safe but lower-status and less rewarding job, or 2) operate their own business in a risky and difficult environment. Running one's own business is difficult and risky, but gives psychological satisfaction of being one's own boss and a status of sajangnim, or "president" in Korean. Many immigrants therefore opt for entrepreneurship.

The data clearly show that within the American business structure and its clear racially-based hierarchy, Korean-owned firms occupy a "middleman" minority status sandwiched between the dominant group (non-Hispanic Whites) and less powerful classes (African Americans and Hispanics). To compete successfully, Korean small business owners work long hours, mobilize family labor, and ethnic resources. Husband and wife team up to operate the family business without vacations or weekends. Their children also help during the afterschool hours.

During a relatively short period in America, Korean immigrants have concentrated in building an economic base for themselves and for their children. For some, that means locating in poor urban minority-dominated ghettos; for others, it means moving into middle-class suburbs. Their lives involve mingling with both the poor and wealthy, the majority and the minority. Koreans have become a visible and significant minority in this multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation. This hardworking, highly educated, and actively organized ethnic community is increasing its stake in American society. The impact will be tremendous very soon when the second-generation of Korean Americans reach adulthood.

These points are unrelated to North Koreans, who make up less than 0.1% of Korean Americans due to US-DPRK relations. Currently, Russia and North Korea are closely aligned, making it unlikely that the number of North Koreans in the US will increase significantly in the future. Therefore, merging the articles is unreasonable.[1] 162.44.230.200 (talk) 07:47, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

While all of that is true, I believe the consensus here was to merge most of this to North Korean defectors – very little of it would go in the Korean Americans article. If, however, you substantially improve this article to the point where it doesn't duplicate the North Korean defectors article or the Korean Americans article, I suppose there would be no need to merge. @Seefooddiet thoughts? Toadspike [Talk] 14:29, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Dubious tag and article scope

The article claims that the first North Koreans arrived in 2006, but a number of North Korean people arrived in the US during/after the Korean War. Example: Chong-Sik Lee.

Some of the article is out of the scope of the article title, and belongs more on North Korean defectors. seefooddiet (talk) 20:44, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the proposal to merge the articles for several reasons. The articles on Korean Americans and North Korean defectors cover distinct topics with unique historical and social contexts. Merging them would dilute the specificity and clarity of each subject. Each article provides detailed information relevant to its specific topic. Combining them could result in a loss of depth and make it harder for readers to find focused information on either subject. There is a discrepancy regarding the arrival of North Koreans in the US. Historical records indicate that North Koreans arrived during and after the Korean War. This historical nuance is important and warrants separate coverage. North Korean defectors represent a very small fraction of Korean Americans, less than 0.1%. Most Korean Americans are from South Korea, and this distinction should be clearly maintained to avoid confusion. Therefore, I believe it is more appropriate to keep the articles separate and provide cross-references where necessary to maintain clarity and depth of information. 162.44.230.200 (talk) 07:44, 30 April 2025 (UTC)