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The high unemployment rate, political insecurity, and military dictatorship caused massive numbers of Koreans to immigrate to the United States in the 1960s through the early 1980s. Their children, largely known as the “second generation,” ( gyopo in Korean) compose the present-day Korean-American community.
- Korean Immigration to Hawaii
- Korean Immigration, 1905-1945
- Korean Immigration, 1945-1965
- Immigration After 1965
- Korean Business Ventures in The United States
During the late nineteenth century, famine and poverty had driven many rural Koreans to urban centers, where they were exposed to Christianity and Western cultural influences. During that period, Korea was feeling the pressure of Chinese and Japanese efforts to dominate its government, and many Koreans were becoming more sympathetic to the idea of ...
That first wave of Korean immigration came to an abrupt end in 1905, when the Korean government received reports of mistreatment of Korean laborers in Mexico and stopped permitting its people to go to either Mexico or the United States. Japan’s government also pressured the Korean government to close its emigration bureau because it was concerned w...
After World War II ended in 1945, the Japanese were ousted from Korea, which was effectively partitioned between the Soviet Union and the United States. The United States occupied the southern part of the Korean Peninsula until 1948, when the Republic of Korea was established under president Syngman Rhee. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union helped set up a...
The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-Cellar Act) eliminated national origins quotas and gave priority to immigrants with skills. In addition, the law allowed the spouses, unmarried minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens to enter as nonquota immigrants. With the passage of the 1965 law, the third and largest...
During the 1960’s, South Korea rose from the ravages of the war and gained economic strength and stability, aided by U.S. economic support and export-oriented economic policies. The living standards of South Koreans improved, and higher education expanded rapidly. During the early 1960’s, only about 6 percent of Korean Americans were classified as ...
- North and South Korea
- Korean
- 1880’s
- California and New York State
Since the 1960s, immigration from the Korean peninsula to the United States has increased dramatically, driven by political, economic, and military relations between South Korea and the United States.
Since 1965, Korean spouses of American servicemen have played key roles in supporting the migration of family members through visa sponsorship. Legal provisions that affected the arrivals of Korean women and children to the United States provided a precedent for US immigration reform after 1950.
Koreans entered the United States as permanent residents between 1965 and 1990. As a result of the massive Korean immigration after 1965, the Korean population in the United States increased dramatically from 69,150 in 1970, to 357,393 in 1980, and 798,849 in 1990 (Barringer et al. 1993, p. 39).
From only 3 percent of the total of immigrants in 1960, Asians made up 34 percent of all immigrants to the United States in 1975. Immigration by Asian Indians rose from three hundred in 1965 to fourteen thousand in 1975; Korean immigration grew more than tenfold in the next three decades.
The third wave of immigration since the 1965 Immigration Act, which allowed family and employment immigration, has resulted in the development of large Korean immigrant communities in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, as well as smaller communities throughout the United States.
