Presenting findings from the 2010 Census and the 2009 American Community Survey, a new report entitled Korean Americans in a New Century by the University of Maryland’s Asian American Studies Program (AAST) shines a revealing light on this a fast growing and often misunderstood population.

 

“What’s really interesting about the Korean American community is that in that population base, we’re talking about a tremendous amount of diversity and a lot of different experiences and waves of Korean Americans,” said Dr. Larry Shinagawa, director of AAST, and one of the report’s primary authors, while speaking at the Korean Embassy’s KORUS House on May 11.

 

The Korean American community has grown four-fold since 1980 to approximately 1.5 million today: about .4% of the U.S. population and 10% of the Asian American population. While almost 3 out of every 4 Korean Americans were born overseas, the vast majority of Korean Americans have grown up or had some education in the United States. As a result, a large segment of the Korean American population is what Shinagawa calls “between first and second generation,” commonly know as the 1.5 generation.

 

“They’re not quite second generation, but they’re not quite first generation. And that generation, by far, is some of the most accomplished Korean Americans in the Untied States.”

 

“The image that so many people have,” he went on to say, “is that Korean Americans are a first generation population and they’re not very acculturated. Nothing could be further from the truth. The actuality is that the vast majority of Korean Americans are quite acculturated or have some degree of acculturation to a point where they have quite a lot of accomplishments in the United States and in integration.”

 

 

“Supposedly Korean Americans are highly educated, high-income, they have gone into the best jobs, that they can do anything that anyone else can do,” Shinagawa said. “There seem to be very few barriers.... It’s almost as if they’re a perfect model for other minorities to follow. That’s why [they] has been described as a model minority.”

 

There is some truth to that, Shinagawa added, but there are also significant flaws to the stereotype.

 

“Korean Americans are actually entering into non-traditional fields in a whole variety of areas. I can’t stress that enough.”

 

For example, Korean Americans’ choice of college majors are not all science, math, and engineering; on the contrary, fine arts (10.3%) and social sciences (8.7%) are more popular than biology and life sciences (6.1%) or physical science (3.6%). And although 15.9% major in business, that’s almost 5% lower than the national U.S. average.

 

“Does this fit the model minority imagery? I don’t think so,” Shinagawa said. “What it shows is that Korean Americans are quite integrated and acculturated...and they want to, just like everybody else in this country, experience different things and go beyond what their stereotypical behavior might be prescribed as.”

 

 

One of the report’s key findings was the diversity of Korean Americans not only in educational choices, but in location, period of immigration, language, marriage patterns, citizenship, and ethnic background.

 

A full 11.2% of Korean Americans identify as multiracial, and 5% of Korean Americans born overseas were not born in Korea, but in other Diaspora communities around the world. “They growing, becoming more and more a fabric of the Korean American community, and we can’t underestimate their importance.”

 

Despite the rapid pace of change, Korean Americans also retain close ties to their motherland in Asia, making them a group with uniquely strong bi-national ties.

 

“It’s a brand new century. Korean Americans are coming to the fore and...becoming an integral part of this society and they’re still keeping links with their motherland, Korea.”

 

By Adam Wojciechowicz