Institute for Social Science Research

A large number of Koreans have been admitted to the United States as legal immigrants since the change in the immigration law in 1965. A significant proportion of the new Korean immigrants have settled in Los Angeles. As a result, the Los Angeles Korean community, the home of some 200,000 Koreans, has become not only the largest Korean center in the United States but also the largest overseas Korean center. This paper provides an overview of Korean immigrants and the Korean community in Los Angeles. It focuses on Koreatown, Korean immigrant entrepreneurship, and Koreans’ ethnic attachment and solidarity in Los Angeles. Interviews with some 500 Korean immigrants in Los Angeles were used as the major data source for this paper. It also depends upon public documents, ethnic directories, ethnic newspaper articles, and previously published materials by other scholars for information on Koreans in Los Angeles.