Product Description: This is the only anthology that covers several different topics related to Koreans’ experiences in the U.S. and Canada. The topics covered are Koreans’ immigration and settlement patterns, changes in Korean immigrants’ business patterns, Korean immigrant churches’ social functions, differences between Korean immigrant intact families and geese families, transnational ties, second-generation Koreans’ identity issues, and Korean international students’ gender issues...read more

Generations of immigrants have relied on small family businesses in their pursuit of the American dream. This entrepreneurial tradition remains highly visible among Korean immigrants in New York City, who have carved out a thriving business niche for themselves operating many of the city’s small grocery stores and produce markets. But this success has come at a price, leading to dramatic, highly publicized conflicts between Koreans and other ethnic groups. In Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival, Pyong Gap Min takes Korean produce retailers as a case study to explore how involvement in ethnic businesses—especially where it collides with the economic interests of other ethnic groups—powerfully shapes the social, cultural, and economic unity of immigrant groups.Korean produce merchants, caught between white distributors, black customers, Hispanic employees, and assertive labor unions, provide a unique opportunity to study the formation of group solidarity in the face of inter-group conflicts. Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival draws on census and survey data, interviews with community leaders and merchants, and a review of ethnic newspaper articles to trace the growth and evolution of Korean collective action in response to challenges produce merchants received from both white suppliers and black customers.When Korean produce merchants first attempted to gain a foothold in the city’s economy, they encountered pervasive discrimination from white wholesale suppliers at Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. In response, Korean merchants formed the Korean Produce Association (KPA), a business organization that gradually evolved into a powerful engine for promoting Korean interests. The KPA used boycotts, pickets, and group purchasing to effect enduring improvements in supplier-merchant relations.Pyong Gap Min returns to the racially charged events surrounding black boycotts of Korean stores in the 1990s, which were fueled by frustration among African Americans at a perceived economic invasion of their neighborhoods. The Korean community responded with rallies, political negotiations, and publicity campaigns of their own. The disappearance of such disputes in recent years has been accompanied by a corresponding reduction in Korean collective action, suggesting that ethnic unity is not inevitable but rather emerges, often as a form of self-defense, under certain contentious conditions. Solidarity, Min argues, is situational.This important new book charts a novel course in immigrant research by demonstrating how business conflicts can give rise to demonstrations of group solidarity. Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival is at once a sophisticated empirical analysis and a riveting collection of stories—about immigration, race, work, and the American dream.

Presents alphabetical entries by thirty-three contributors dealing with the history of racial discrimination, covering such topics as slavery, the civil rights movement, riots, busing, literacy testing, affirmative action, and hate crimes.

Since 1965, when the immigration law was liberalized, over 200,000 Asians have arrived annually in the United States, increasing their total number to 7.3 million. While focusing on the Asian-American population as a whole, this collection also devotes a number of chapters to the major ethnic groups within that population, including Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian and Korean. Asian Americans adopts the unique approach of examining the issues, and often obstacles, specific to each group, such as occupational and economic adjustment, intermarriage and settlement patterns. Attention is also given to the impact of migration on traditional customs and values of the groups, as well as their collective impa

Product Description: During the mass migration period in the United States-between the years 1880 and 1930-an astounding 28 million people immigrated into the country. Min and his contributors offer a detailed evaluation of the differences and similarities between the immigrant groups from this earlier period and from the post-1965 contemporary period of immigration...read more

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The flux of Asian immigration over the last 35 years has deeply altered the United States' religious landscape. But neither social scientists nor religious scholars have fully appreciated the impact of these growing communities. And Asian immigrant religious communities are significant to the study of American religion not only because there are more than ten million Asian Americans. Asian American religions differ substantially from models drawn from European religions, pushing for new wider understandings. Religions in Asian America provides a comprehensive overview of the religious practices of Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Americans. How these new communities work through issues of gender, race, transnationalism, income disparities and social service, and the passing along an ethnic identity to the next generation make up the common themes that reach across essays about the varying communities. The first sociological overview of Asian American religions, Religions in Asian America is necessary reading for those interested in Asians, ethnicity, immigration or religion in the United States. (view table of contents)

Essays discuss cultural conflicts, identifying with all-Asian American or larger groups, biculturalism, weakening ties to the ancestral culture, and other responses (view table of contents)

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Product Description: In this unflinching exploration of one of the most politically charged topics of our time, Pyong Gap Min investigates the racial dynamics that exist between Korean merchants, the African American community, and white society in general...read more