Pyong Gap Min

The Structure and Social Functions of Korean Immigrant Churches in the United States

A vast majority of Korean immigrants in the United States are affiliated with ethnic churches. Korean ethnic churches serve important social functions for Korean church members and the Korean community as a whole. This article has two major objectives. First, it provides descriptive information on the structure of Korean immigrant churches in the United States. More importantly, it systematically analyzes social functions of Korean immigrant churches. The article focuses on four major social functions: 1) providing fellowship for Korean immigrants; 2) maintaining the Korean cultural tradition; 3) providing social services for church members and the Korean community as a whole; and 4) providing social status and positions for Korean adult immigrants. Interviews with 131 Korean head pastors in New York City are the major data source for this study.

Immigrant entrepreneurship and business patterns : A comparison of Koreans and Iranians in Los Angeles

There are currently two theoretically controversial issues concerning immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship in the literature, one on its causes and the other on its consequences. The first is the debate about whether ethnic or class resources are more central to the establishment of immigrant/ethnic businesses. The second issue is whether there is a causal connection between ethnic business and ethnic solidarity. Based on a comparison of the two most entrepreneurial immigrant groups in Los Angeles (Koreans and Iranians), this article addresses both issues. Korean immigrants rely more on ethnic resources, whereas Iranians depend more on class resources. Relative utilization of class vs. ethnic resources determines the patterns of immigrant/ethnic businesses rather than their development in the first place. Korean businesses on average are smaller, more concentrated, and serve more co-ethnic and low-income minority customers, while Iranian immigrants are larger, more dispersed, and largely serve white customers. As a result, Koreans have encountered severe intergroup conflict, whereas Iranians have sidestepped it. Our comparison of these two groups suggests that only middleman businesses strengthen ethnic solidarity, although all types of immigrant/ethnic businesses may contribute to ethnic attachment. Paying special attention to business patterns (e.g., size, type, and location) — much neglected variables in research on immigrant/ethnic entrepreneurship — helps in resolving both theoretical issues.

Changes and Conflicts: Korean Immigrant Families in New York.

1.Changes and Conflicts in Family Life. 2.The Korean Community in New York. 3.Confucianism and the Korean Family System. 4.Marital Relations. 5.Child Care and Child Socialization. 6.Adjustment among the Elderly. 7.Transnational Kin and Family Ties. 8.Continuity and Change among Korean Immigrants. References.

Problems of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurs

This article analyzes major problems of Korean immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States. It is based on interviews with 557 Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, ethnic newspaper articles and personal observations of the Korean community. Korean entrepreneurs’ long hours of work are detrimental to their physical and psychological well-being. Also, because of their business concentration in low-income, minority areas, Korean entrepreneurs are subject to frequent armed robberies, shoplifting, strikes, boycotts and other forms of rejection. Korean entrepreneurs are vulnerable to exploitation because of their dependence upon outgroup members for supplies of merchandise and their dependence on landlords for leases of store buildings. Korean immigrants are engaged in low level, blue collar businesses, and thus most Korean entrepreneurs face the problem of status inconsistency. Finally, Korean immigrants’ segregation into the ethnic sub-economy, while enhancing ethnic attachment and ethnic solidarity, hinders cultural and social assimilation.

Formation of ethnic and racial identities: narratives by young Asian-American professionals

This article examines Asian-American professionals’ ethnic and pan-ethnic attachments and identities through fifteen autobiographical essays. Classical assimilation theory predicts that well-educated Asian-American professionals will be highly acculturated into the white middle class, with little retention of their ethnic subculture; yet many of our essayists had strong, bicultural orientations. Their high level of social assimilation, reflected in their friendships and intimate relationships with whites, indicates that Asian Americans can socially assimilate without relinquishing their culture. Most of the 1.5 and second-generation essayists tried to hide their ethnic culture and non-white characteristics during their early school years. Yet, they experienced a painful but gradual establishment of an ethnic identity, usually beginning in their college years. Some contributors also expressed varying degrees of pan-Asian identity and a moderate level of Third World racial identity.

Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture: Korean Protestants in the U.S.

This paper systematically examines the extent to which Korean Protestant immigrants in the United States have transmitted their religion and cultural traditions through religion. It is based on a survey of 1.5- and 2nd-generation Korean American adults and a survey of Korean English-language congregations in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. Previous studies reveal that the majority of Korean immigrants are affiliated with a Korean Protestant church and that their frequent participation in it enables them to preserve Korean cultural traditions. Results of our survey show that Korean Protestant immigrants are highly successful in transmitting their church-oriented style of Protestantism to the second generation. Approximately two-thirds of 1.5- and 2nd-generation Korean American adults who attended a Protestant church during their childhood were found to participate in a Protestant congregation regularly, with more than two-thirds of them going to a Korean congregation. Moreover, they also participate in a congregation as frequently as Korean immigrants. However, our study shows that Korean Protestant immigrants have failed to transmit their cultural traditions through religion. Korean English-language congregations for 1.5- and 2nd-generation Korean American Protestants have almost entirely eliminated Korean cultural components from worship services and other socio-cultural activities. Transmitting Korean cultural traditions through religion is difficult for Korean Protestant immigrants partly because there is a great dissociation between Korean Protestantism and Korean secular culture and partly because second-generation Korean American Protestants have embraced the white American evangelical subculture. Based on these findings, we argue that transmitting a religion does not necessarily help to transmit ethnic culture and ethnic identity unless there is a strong correlation between the two.

Patterns of Intermarriages and Cross-Generational In-Marriages among Native-Born Asian Americans

This article examines patterns of post-1965 native-born Asian Americans’ intermarriages and cross-generational in-marriages using a combined sample of the 2001–2006 American Community Surveys from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The analysis focuses on ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross-generational in-marriage rates and patterns. About 55 percent of native-born Asian Americans are found to be intermarried while another 23 percent are married to 1.5-generation or first-generation co-ethnic immigrants. Thus only 22 percent of native-born Asian Americans are married to co-ethnic native-born Asian Americans. As expected, there are significant ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross-generational in-marriage rates and patterns. This study is significant because it is the first study that has examined intermarriage patterns among post-1965 native-born Asian Americans, the majority of whom are likely to be children of post-1965 Asian immigrants, using the most recent Census data available. It is also significant for studies of the new second generation in general in that it is the first study to show patterns of cross-generational in-marriage among members of the new second generation.

Factors Contributing to Ethnic Business: A Comprehensive Synthesis

This paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of the findings on factors contributing to ethnic business by reviewing the literature. Labor market disadvantages push minority members toward self-employment in small business. However, only those minority groups with advantages for small business in one way or another can develop a significant level of ethnic business. Some minority groups have cultural characteristics conducive to the development of small business such as work ethic, future orientation and ethnic ties. Immigrant and alien groups have other non-cultural advantages for small business associated with their alien status. In addition, the social structure of the host society can also encourage or constrain ethnic business. Residential succession and racial segregation, the changes in industrial structure and government policy have been indicated as major structural factors that have influence on ethnic business in western industrial societies. MAX WEBER AND OTHER THEORISTS (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967; Marx, 1964: 1064; Nielsen, 1980; Vidich and Bensman, 1960; Weber, 1947: 427) predicted that small business would disintegrate as capitalist concentration increases. However, small enterprises have hardly disappeared in this post-industrial age, although they are not as prevalent as they were a century ago. A sociologically interesting question in this regard is why some ethnic/immigrant minorities such as Jews and Chinese have shown a high level of representation and success in small business across different times and places. This social phenomenon has been referred to as ethnic enterprise and has received a great deal of sociological attention during the last 20 years. The revival of small business in the U.S. and Europe in the 1970s (Fain, 1980) and the entry of many non-white immigrants into small business more recently (Boissevain, 1984; Waldinger et al., 1985) have led to a revitalization of scholarly interest in ethnic enterprise. In fact, this seems to be one of the most popular topics in the area of race/ethnic/minority relations. Moreover, ethnic enterprise has been studied by social scientists in other disciplines such as history, anthropology and economics. Many empirical studies on minority small business have also been undertaken by those in the fields of management and finance. As a result, we have a vast amount of information on the phenomenon of ethnic enterprise.

Korean “Comfort Women” The Intersection of Colonial Power, Gender, and Class

During the Asian and Pacific War (1937-45), the Japanese government mobilized approximately 200,000 Asian women to military brothels to sexually serve Japanese soldiers. The majority of these victims were unmarried young women from Korea, Japan’s colony at that time. In the early 1990s, Korean feminist leaders helped more than 200 Korean survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery to come forward to tell the truth, which has further accelerated the redress movement for the women. One major issue in the redress movement and research relating to the so-called “comfort women” issue is whether Japan’s colonization of Korea or gender hierarchy was a more fundamental cause of the Korean women’s suffering. Using an intersectional perspective, this article analyzes how colonial power, gender hierarchy, and class were inseparably tied together to make the victims’ lives miserable. By doing so, it shows that a one-sided emphasis on colonization or gender hierarchy will misrepresent the feminist political issue and misinterpret the “comfort women’s” experiences.

A comparison of the Korean minorities in China and Japan.

Approximately 1.8 million Koreans are settled in China and some 700,000 Koreans are located in Japan. The Korean minorities in two neighboring Asian countries make an interesting contrast in adjustment and ethnicity. Whereas the Koreans in China have maintained high levels of ethnic autonomy and positive ethnic identity, the Korean Japanese have lost much of their cultural repertoire and have suffered from negative ethnic identity. This paper provides a comparative analysis, explaining why the Koreans in two countries have made the different adjustments. It focuses on the basic differences in minority policy between China and Japan, the difference in the context of migration, the existence or absence of a territorial base, and the differential levels of influence from Korea. This comparative analysis is theoretically valuable because it has demonstrated that the physical and cultural differences between the majority group and a minority group are not necessary conditions for prejudice and discrimination against the minority group.