Asian America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022. x, 199 pp. (Maps, B&W photos.) US$26.00, paper. ISBN 9781503631823.
Koreatown, Los Angeles is a welcoming book on the Los Angeles Korean American community, the largest diasporic Korean community outside of Korea. It is refreshing to see historical scholarship covering the Korean American community, which has been studied mostly by social scientists, in particular sociologists. This book demonstrates exemplary historical analysis and craftmanship. More importantly, perhaps it is the first monograph examining Koreatown, Los Angeles as a research object. In the past, for instance, Angie Chung in her book, Legacies of Struggle: Conflict and Cooperation in Korean American Politics (Stanford University Press, 2007) examined LA Koreatown as a context and background, but not as an object per se. As a matter of fact, we have been waiting for a scholarly work on LA’s Koreatown in the 1970s and 1980s, when post-1965 Korean immigration was well under way; Koreatown, Los Angeles covers this gap. The author identified and consulted numerous archives, ranging from the Tom Bradley Administration Papers to K. W. Lee Papers, media reports such as Koreatown Weekly, KoreAm Journal, and Korea Times Los Angeles, and supplemented with interviews, memoirs, and online sources.
The author sets out to write six chapters, which are topically and chronologically organized. Chapter 1 provides an overview of Korean immigration to Los Angeles, as part of the great influx of post-1965 immigration; the author aptly contextualizes this against the backdrop of a worsening political economy (therefore growing social and economic malaise) in the United States. Chapter 2 examines the birth and development of Koreatown in the 1970s and 1980s with respect to the Korean immigrant development machine, members of KTDA (Korea Town Development Association) and their visions for developing Koreatown, Los Angeles. Chapter 3 considers what legendary journalist K. W. Lee called the “BK” (before Koreatown) generations, referring to “the predecessors of the post-1965ers …a small but varied lot, including labor migrants who went to Hawaii as early as 1903, students arriving in the 1950s, and their descendants” (66) and young Korean Americans (the “knee-highs,” second- and third- generation, and other Americanized Koreans), who “grappled with the social and psychological baggage resulting from the stigmatization of their heritage” (70). They kept distance from the post-1965 immigrants, in particular immigrant business leaders, “who understood Korean American interests primarily in terms of commerce and the development of Koreatown” (80). Chapter 4 discusses how Korean immigrants and South Korea ended up playing important roles in reinventing Los Angeles as a global city during the 1970s and 1980s, despite some backlash, while deepening the connections between Los Angeles, Korean Americans, and South Korea. Chapter 5 examines Korean-Black relations in South LA, ranging from the escalating anti-Korean sentiment to the destruction of Koreatown and Korean-owned businesses in the Los Angeles uprising. Lee informs us that the (defunct) Bank of Finance, which symbolized African Americans’ quest for uplift and freedom, came under Korean American ownership, another reminder about the impact of immigration on the African American community (113), conducive to later anti-Korean sentiment in South LA. Chapter 6 traces how Korean Americans came to rebuild Koreatown. Lee suggests there were three key developments crucial for this comeback: the rise of physician-turned investor, David Lee, CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency) status, and an inflow of South Korean capital. The epilogue updates the gentrification or mainstream Americanization of Koreatown and heightened interest in it and the Koreatown-ification of Los Angeles. Lee concludes by pointing out that “Koreatown’s growing place in the American cultural consciousness, has converged with and paralleled the rise of hallyu, or the global popularity of South Korean film, television, and music” (160), yet she also expresses concern about the rise of pandemic-led anti-Asian violence.
There are numerous strengths to Koreatown, Los Angeles. First, Lee interweaves Korean-American history with American, regional, and urban history with great dexterity. The author tells “a story of Korean Americans against larger stories of Los Angeles and the United States during the late twentieth century” (3), while “contextualizing its subjects against a broader backdrop of cultural malaise, urban turmoil, liberal multiculturalism, and economic transition” (4). Existing literature tends to portray an ethnic neighbourhood as if cut off from the rest of society. Second, readers will appreciate Lee’s clear explanation of how Koreans immigrated to the US as a result of globalization, and also how the global aspirations of Los Angeles were conducive to the influx of trans-Pacific capital from South Korea, though with some backlash from the local Angelenos. Third, it is to the author’s credit that she critically examines the controversial role played by the CRA and other neoliberal, public-private entities in Los Angeles. Fourth, it is a pleasure to read the author’s eloquent writing, which is both to the point and showcases her comprehensive grasp of what went on in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
At the same time, there are a couple of lingering questions. First, this book touches on many research topics ranging from immigration history to race relations; however, the analytical discussion is sometimes muted. For instance, the book’s subtitle includes immigration, race, and the “American Dream,” but “race” is used as a merely descriptive variable. Second, it is definitely informative to hear about so called “BK Korean Americans” and their take on new immigrants. Yet there is no mention of how the prototype Koreatown has evolved since the beginning of the last century, when a number of Korean immigrants settled in the city’s downtown. Since then, the community has moved westward and down south from the USC area, and then further relocated towards the city’s Olympic Boulevard in the aftermath of the Watts riots in 1965.
Nevertheless, Koreatown, Los Angeles will be an invaluable source for generations of policy makers, commentators, and the public as well as scholars and students who are interested in new immigrant communities, the Korean/Asian American community, urban politics, race relations, and globalization.
University of California, Los Angeles