Review of “Koreatown, Los Angeles: Immigration, Race, and the American Dream”

Abstract

Koreatown in Los Angeles now attracts locals and tourists to experience unique ethnic cultural experiences from food to nightlife in a section of the global L.A., where diverse cultures are celebrated and appreciated. Yet, for Koreans both in the United States and in South Korea, Koreatown in LA is a symbol of Korean America far from their homeland, reflecting their successes and struggles as a racialized minority group in urban United States. In fact, the past memories of urban unrest and Black-Korean conflicts of the 1990s are still alive and have lingered in their minds, resonating collective memories of painful loss and ruins, where their American Dream was destroyed overnight. In Koreatown, Los Angeles, Lee introduces how Koreatown in LA has evolved by engaging with both local and global contexts across the Pacific Rim from the 1960s to the current era, including the urban riots in the 1960s and ‘70s, the 1965 Immigration Act, white flight, disinvestment in inner-cities, spatial segregation of Black urbanites, globalization, and more recent foreign investments since the late 1990s. Past research on Koreatown and Korean American communities in the United States can be broken down into two main categories: (1) ethnic enclave economy debates from the 1970s to 1990s and (2) Black-Korean conflicts of the 1980s and ‘90s, such as the LA riots and Black boycotts against Korean merchants, and its consequent political awakening of Korean Americans. Lee uniquely and interestingly marinates the two major research agendas in Korean American studies and reminds and reconnects readers of the recent past of the pain and loss that have often been overshadowed by more recent redevelopment of the space, characterized by the construction of luxurious high-rise buildings. Impressively, the author not only emphasizes local contexts in the United States but also shows the deep understanding of transnational influences in overseas Korean communities, particularly economic structural changes in South Korea and foreign investment after the Asian financial crisis of 1997.