Korean American Experience

1. The Korean immigrants have a unique way of undertaking their business and this makes them successful in being the most entrepreneurship ethnicity. They uniquely organize their small entrepreneurship activities in a well manner that inspires the success of their businesses. They use their skills in entrepreneurship to enhance their growth and development as immigrants as they avoid low wages employment. They thus employ the capital formation skills through savings as they save some of their inheritance as well as their personal savings from Korea so as to increase the money circulation amongst the Korean immigrants. This increases their ability to lend to one another thus allowing them to start off a new business (Park 893). This has attracted more Korean immigrants and an increase in the money circulation within their community thus enhancing an increase in capital investments and ultimately entrepreneurship growth. The Korean immigrants have a culture that is strong and very resilient with an informal support that enhances them to cope in the hostile environs. In this case, the Korean immigrants are usually able to settle for entrepreneurial activities. It is this transformation in the Korean community that they have been able to become self independent and self employed with immigrants’ success in small businesses. This ultimately results to their upward economic as well as social achievement and mobility in the nation where they are hosted (Park 895).

 

2. (a) The Korean community has a culture where the parents put so much value on high status and financially well-paid professions. Thus they highly emphasizes these professions all for social and financial security as they believe that these careers would act as better shields which enhances them to fight against discrimination. Thus as most of these Korean immigrants face so much discrimination while in the American community, they tend to encourage their children to pursue technical careers where subjectivity is reduced. This emphasis has therefore promoted the second generation occupational mainstreaming following the high expectations of the Korean immigrant parents. This therefore creates more pressure on this second generation as they have to excel in their education so as to secure these professional fields as they compete with the New York job market (Kim 413). The Korean parents thus encourage and take their children in those prestigious universities.Parents are highly devoted towards their children’s education as it is illustrated in the naming of the Ivy League. Academic success to these parents seems to be central importance of one being a Korean as it brings about prestige just as money and wealth attributes to prestige. The parents thus use various forms of discipline as well as Confucius educational knowledge as this encourages the students to perform well in education (Lec notes iv). Caring relationships between the students and their educators and with their community is essential in transforming the lives of these youths as it is easier to connect with their academic performance and success. However, some of these students from the poor backgrounds studying in urban schools lack this good and caring relationships and this makes it difficult for them to connect with their teachers for academic excellence. This increases the gap between the immigrant youths as some has the access to caring relations and thus are able to attain academic success as compared to the disadvantaged immigrants’ youths who has no access to these relations and thus resulting to their poor inexperience in education.

(b) Variations in schooling aspirations and success amongst the Korean immigrants’ youths are greatly determined by the social as well as economic structure of their societies as well as their respective schools. The school and cultural capital are important in ensuring that the Korean youths achieve their educational goals at school. However with the disparities in the social class amongst the Korean immigrants those of poor backgrounds are not able to access and accumulate these social and cultural resources while those from middle social classes are able to acquire education  but not as quality as those from high class backgrounds. Thus in most cases those immigrants youths from poor backgrounds drop out of school as they only afford urban schools which has a challenge of shortage in educators, institutional resources and limited capacity to accommodate all the increasing number of children (Lew 307). This therefore shows the wide range of education expertise amongst the youths in the Korean immigrants.

 

3. Kim and Min uses an intensive literature review on some of the Christian groups so as to be able to understand the overemphasis in U.S participation in the congregations as a manner in which they preserve their ethnic culture and traditions. The authors explain well the attendance of the protestant adults who attend the church through the use of statistical methods. The authors widely use the survey method through the collection of data using samples of different churches. Evaluation and critical analysis has been carried out by the authors so as to come up with a final conclusion on the data collected. It is thus evident that the Korean Protestants immigrants are successful in their transmission of church related style to the 2^nd generation. The authors are also able to inform us of the difficulties that are faced in transferring Korean cultural traditions on to the Korean Protestants immigrants. This is due to the great dissociation between the Korean Protestants and the Korean secular society as some of these second generation Korean American immigrants and Protestants have adapted the white American culture and also due to the Confucianism elements (Kim & Min 279-280). This article however, is not well organized and the research is not done thoroughly. The authors report lacks some of the important sections such as a good introduction of the report. This leaves the reader without knowledge of what is being addressed in the entire report. The article also has an inadequate background of study that explains in details of what happened in the history; rather it gives a brief overview of the issue of the Korean immigrants and their religion. The article is however educative but an update should be carried out and ensure that the article is well structured so as to allow the reader to be able to connect the points well hence enhancing the readers understanding. The article should be captive so as to encourage the reader to be interested in reading the entire article. It is however important to note that the wide range of data sources used by the authors have enhanced the variation and analyzing of data with a better comparison of these data analysis so as to come up with a stronger claim and conclusion.

According to Kim, the article is an evidence based article that has so much of support from the intensive researches that the authors have undertaken. This article has different information from the 108 interviews that they have carried out and the participant observations that they have carried out in the 22 churches (Kim 103). This has thus enhanced the authors to determine an intensive analysis and outlooks of the second generation churches thus demonstrating to the readers the role that the religion and the religious institutions play in the immigrant’s adaptation as well as their identity establishment. The author has a captive introduction that allows the reader to understand the basis of the articles argument. The introduction explains the reinvention and the replanting process of the ethnic churches second generation Koreans American immigrants in the same time as that is used by the Korean Americans. A literature review on different subtopics that are related to the articles argument helps the reader of this article to understand what is already known and researched about the ethnic churches that existed earlier on in the Korean immigrants history and that which is known in the current reinvented and replanted second generation ethnic churches. The author explains the various methods of data collection methods that he has used thus making his data valid as there is evidence to support all his claims.

 

4. (a) The unrest resulted to physical impact on the Korean American immigrants who suffered a great loss on their finances as well as physical wounds as others suffered post traumatic stress disorders while others suffered a severe distress from this unrest. The unrest also aggravated the tension that was there between the Korean immigrants and the Latinos in terms of the merchant versus customer relations. This resulted to more hatred expressions amongst themselves and especially amongst the Latinos who worked for the Koreans immigrants under harsh conditions (Park 270). The increasing rift between the two immigrant societies that is between the inter ethnic increased the tension even at work places and also at the churches. The influence of this tension resulted to the encroachment of the Korean conception on issues of gender and sexuality. The unrest resulted to the superiority and minority complex development where each group asserted their own views and the discrimination that each one of them is facing against their counterparts. This brought about more war and differences between the Korean and the Latino immigrants. The unrest is believed to the plan of the US political system where the whites used this conflict so as to bring down the immigrants from rising in their businesses and economically as well as socially (Park 288). In this case, the immigrants had to stay at lower levels and this was as a result of their cultural differences. Destruction of properties occurred during these wars and this resulted to huge financial losses unto the investors. a strategic change was experiences after the unrest in South Central as the Korean immigrants changes the ethnic makeup in their work places having a higher number of employees being blacks that is fellow Korean immigrants with half of the other employees being divided into half Mexicans and half Latinos. This is because the unrest caused a change in attitude towards the whites and towards the Latinos and also to the African Americans as they illustrated to be victims of betrayal. However, this unrest to some extent informed the Korean immigrants of the institutional racism, social as well as economic discriminations and the misleading notion of the Americans dream on meritocracy as well as hard work. This unrest also acted as an eye opener to the Korean immigrant community as they recognized the essence of political and social involvement process. Thus political inspiration became one of the core goals of the Korean immigrants after this unrest so as to secure their future through the control of such unrest from happening again. The experience of the unrest by the Korean immigrants resulted to their change in the business structure as they started to treat their customers with a high level of kindness, respect and politeness (Park 304).

 

(b). Cross racial organization has improved the Korean American and Latino relations as this has broadened a range of understanding between Latinos with the Koreans as they have realized that through good relations with Korean labor and their society will help them in their solution for the Korean managers on behalf of the Latino employees. The Korean re-immigrants has played an important role in improving the Latino Korean relations through their learning of the Spanish language as well as the cultural know-how integrated with compassion towards the Latin American immigrant employees. Thus the Latin’s has been able to change their perceptions from the Koreans as being their employees but rather they view them as their advocates who delink ethnic relations from the Korean managers (Park 163). Also the Latinos are more open and they make efforts towards interacting with others. Both of these two ethnic groups are hard working and there are all ethnic minorities as they are immigrants. Since 1992, their perceptions on each other changed as they recognized that they all came to his nation for one purpose that is improving them and thus leading better lives and since they face the same discrimination, they started to view each other in a good way thus enhancing their relations. Some of the Korean managers have created close relations with their Latin employers and especially when they have worked for some time together. These employees have thus retained their jobs for longer time especially the Mexicans for the same Korean employers. This demonstrates that the racial relations have changes since the year 1992 with an increase in the multifaceted relations between the two groups of immigrants. Hence, they are not only able to share their cultural space through the time that they spent working together but rather they have developed these close interaction with each other through constant socializing and also through assisting one another. Culture concept has thus transformed from the negative role of the Latino and the Korean immigrants into a positive aspect that has helped in the improvement of their relations. The Latinos were open towards other cultures including that of the Korean immigrants’ culture and they are determined in evading any form of racial argument and instead they adopt the strategy of cultural argument. The Korean employers on the other hand have established a patron client relationships where they equally need each other hat is the Latinos, Mexicans and the Koreans. These groups have thus become independent and performance excellence in these businesses has been witnessed following these close relationships. Their relationships are founded under respect for one another as everyone and ever race is important as all of them have a common goal to achieve. Thus they are encouraged to socialize with extension of efforts towards minimizing the cultural and racial differences so as to e able to live in harmony and in peace. However, the racial relationships have improved more between the Latinos and the Korean immigrants as compared to that of the black as well as black Korean immigrant relations. The evolution of the relationships of the different races has reduced the gap and the rift in cultural and racial differences.

 

5. (A). KIWA is a community organization that deals with labor relation issues for domestic workers. KIWA is essential as it sign on the support of other Korean American institutions as to ensure that the laborers secure their jobs and that they have a corporate responsibility. It thus advocates for the Korean workers and deals with the common labor issues that face them. They thus are determined to spark the scholarly attention through their cross racial coalition thus inspiring the class solidarity across all the races and ethnics boarders as an issue of social justice. It has thus formed coalitions with other race and ethnic groups such as the Latino’s, international labor relations, the Mexican Americans and the educational funds. This does not mean that KIWA’s core goal is to improve on the racial relations between these groups. However, KIWA’s goal is to improve on labor issues but in the process it has also aided in improving the relations among the different races (Park 160). KIWA acts as a labor advocacy firm that ensures that the employees are protected from any form of exploitation by their employers.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Kim D.Y. second generation Korean American Professional Fields in New York.

Kim S. Shifting Boundaries within Second-Generation Korean American Churches. California State University, Fullerton, 2010.

Park Kyeyoung. Sources and Resources of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship. University of California, USA, 2010.

Park Kyeyoung. An Analysis of Latino-Korean Relations in the Workplace:Latino Perspectives in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest. Cornell University Press.

Kim Y. & Min G.P. Intergenerational Transmission of Religion and Culture: Korean Protestants in the U.S. Oxford University press, 2014.

Lew James. The “Other” Story of Model Minorities: Korean

American High School Dropouts in an Urban Context. Rutgers university press. Vol.35, 2004.

Park Kyeyoung. Changing the Business Plan: Korean Merchants Try to Reintegrate into South Central Community, 1993.

Park Kyeyoung. The Racial Cartography of Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans.

Lec notes iv. Educational Practices: High Achievers P110.