Some Aspects of Social Demography of Korean Americans

Author(s): Hyung-chan Kim

Source: International Migration Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, (Spring, 1974), pp. 23-42

Published by: The Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3002701

Accessed: 16/06/2008 01:41

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Some Aspects of Social Demography of Korean Americans*

by Hyung-chan Kim**

This study presents an historical survey of the emigration of Korean people to the United States of America from 1901 to 1971. The major emphasis of the study, however, is focused on a critical analysis of two major aspects of social demography of Korean minority in America: (1) general trends of Korean immigrants to the USA from 1959 to 1971, and (2) ascribed characteristics of Koreans in America as reported in the 1970 census. Included in the analysis of the ascribed characteristics is the composition of age and sex of the native-born Koreans compared with that of the foreign-born Koreans in America. State of residence will be also included to indicate urban and/or rural concentration of Korean minority. The analysis of general trends of Korean immigrants to the USA during the 1959-1971 period will include the following characteristics: (a) the age and sex composition of the emigrants, (b) their occupational status at the time of their entry, (c) the rate of those who have been successful in obtaining their US citizenship in proportion to the total emigrants during the 1959-1971 period, and (d) their occupational status at the time of naturalization.

A Brief History

The emigration of Korean people to other parts of the world outside Asia is a recent development in the long history of Korea. Prior to 1945, Manchuria, Japan and the Russian Maritime Province were the three principal regions to which Koreans emigrated to seek new political or economic opportunities.

It was reported that there were 1,255,000 Korean residents in Kirin, Manchuria as of 1961.¹ They speak Korean and maintain a distinctive Korean culture. Particularly, education for the Korean minority in Manchuria is more advanced than any other minority nationalities in Communist China, a fact the Chinese Communist government has officially acknowledged. The educational progress among the Korean residents in Manchuria may be due to the continuous and systematic attempt to build schools by Koreans even before the Communists' take-over of Manchuria.²

* The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Bureau of Faculty Research, Western Washington State College for its financial support that made this research possible. Also my thanks go to Mr. E. Hoerauf, Cartographer at Western Washington State College whose assistance was essential for this research. ** Dr. Hyuny-chan Kim, Ethnic Studies, Western Washington State College

-- China News Analysis, Hong Kong, No. 569, June 18, 1965, pp. 2-3, and Union Research
Service, Hong Kong, Vol. 33, No. 14, November 15, 1965, pp. 218-219.

-- For a thorough historical study of the Korean emigrants to Manchuria, see Lee Hoon K., Manju
wa Choson-in, (Manchuria and the Koreans), P'yongyang: Union Christian College, 1932.

24 THE INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW

The second largest group of Koreans living abroad is found in Japan.³ There are approximately 600,000 Korean residents in Japan. The third largest group of Koreans outside their peninsula is to be found in Soviet Central Asia. A majority of them originally emigrated to the Russian Maritime Province or Siberia. During the Stalin era, however, they were transferred to their present location. According to Walter Kolars, there are approximately 300,000 Koreans who are now considered thoroughly Sovietized.⁴

The fourth largest group of Korean people who reside abroad is found in the United States of America. A total of 68,216 Koreans were reported in the 1970 US census.⁵

The emigration of Korean people to America began in 1899 when Ch'oe Dong-sun, Jang Seung-bong, Kang Jae-ch'ol, Yi Jae-sil and Рак Song-keun migrated to America. But they came as subjects of the Republic of China, and were therefore known as Chinese.⁶ The first Korean emigrants reported by the American immigration authorities were Yung Baek-hin and Kim E-yu who arrived in Hawaii on January 15, 1900.⁷ Although there was a small number of Korean students and government officials who were dispatched to America proper for their official responsibilities prior to their arrival, they were the first to be reported as emigrants from Korea.

During the following year, two important events took place encouraging the emigration of Koreans in Hawaii. The first event was the establishment of an immigration office by the Korean government on August 20, 1902. The second event was the arrival of D.W. Deshler in Korea. Deshler was originally from Hawaii where he managed a large plantation. After his arrival he settled in Che-mulp'o, now Incho'on, where he established a development corporation. On November 15, 1902, he was granted by the Korean government "the control of laborers of Great Korea to be employed abroad." He employed a Korean by the name of Kim Jae-ho as his interpreter and made efforts to encourage Koreans to emigrate to Hawaii.⁸

From December 1902 to May 1905 a total of 7,226 Koreans emigrated to Hawaii. The first ship, S.S. Gaelic with 121 aboard left Korea on December 22,

For a complete and scholarly study of the Korean minority problem in Japan, see Richard H.
Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan, Berkeley, California: University of California Press,
1967.

-- For an interesting study of the Korean minority in Soviet Central Asia, see Walter Kolarz, The
Peoples of the Soviet Far East, New York: Frederick Praeger, 1954.

-- Bureau of Census, Detailed Characteristics, Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office,
1973.

-- Рак Mun-bom, "Nolbojin Miguk i'min ui mun," (Broad Measures for Migration to America),
Sin-dong'a (TheNew East Asia), No. 42, February, 1968, p. 231.

-- The Hankuk Ilbo, (The Korean Times), May 5, 1971.

-- Yu Hong-yol, "Miguk e innun Hanindul," (Koreans in America), Sasang-gye, (Journal of
Thought), Vol. 6, No. 4, April, 1958, p. 39.

SOME ASPECTS OF SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHY 25

1902. In Japan nineteen of these people failed to pass their physical examination and were sent home. The rest sailed for Hawaii and reached its shores on January 13, 1903. The first group that included 56 laborers, 21 women, 13 children and 12 babies settled in Oahu Island to work at the Waialua plantation. The second and third groups which arrived in Hawaii had 63 and 72 people, respectively. A total of 4,567 emigrants came to Hawaii during the following two years: 1,133 in 1903 and 3,434 in 1904." Although 2,659 Koreans came to Hawaii in 1905, 479 of them failed to pass their physical examinations and they were sent back to their home country.

According to Kim Won-yong, the author of the Fifty- Year History of the Korean People in America, a grand total of 7,226 Koreans came to Hawaii before the Korean government put an end to its liberal emigration policy in November, 1905. However, there is in his report a discrepancy of 126 persons between the actual number of people who had left Korea and those who remained in Hawaii. This discrepancy may be due to the failure on the part of the author to account for the exact number of people who were sent home because of bad health.¹⁰ Among these 7,226 people there were 6,048 men, 637 women, and 541 children, both male and female. Most of them were farmers by social origin, and consequently there was a high rate of illiteracy among them. It was reported that approximately 65% of them was illiterate. According to another source, however, a total of 7,843 Koreans emigrated during the same period. There were 6,701 men, 677 women and 465 children. A total of 721, of whom 653 were men, 40 women and 28 children, left both for the Orient and the West Coast leaving 7,122 Koreans behind."

Toward the end of 1905 the Korean government put an end to all further Korean emigration when it learned the hardship that Korean emigrants had to undergo. Although several hundred Koreans came to America for various reasons by way of China, Europe and Japan from 1905 to 1945, they were not emigrants in a genuine sense. The emigration of Koreans resumed with the Japanese defeat in 1945. The exact number of Koreans who came to America between 1945 and 1947 is not available for the present study. The US Imi-gration authorities reported that in 1948 and 1949, 46 and 40 persons born in Korea emigrated to America, respectively. But there is no record of the Korean emigrants to America during the 1945-1947 period.

As indicated in Table I, 57,129 Koreans were reported as emigrants during the 1950-1971 period. How many of these people had come to America as nonimmigrants and later adjusted their status to permanent resident is not clear.

9. Ibid., pp. 39-40.

-- According to Yu Hong-yol, an established historian in Korea, the grand total of Koreans who
emigrated to Hawaii between December 1902 and November 1905 was 6,747.

-- Hawaii Korean Golden Jubilee Celebration, Committee Fifty Years of Progress, n.d., n.p.

26 THE INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW

During 1968 a total of 1,098 Korean non-immigrants adjusted their status of alien resident to that of permanent resident, and in the following year 1,812 nonimmigrants succeeded in changing their alien status to permanent status. In 1970 and 1971, 2,079 and 4,049 Korean non-immigrants adjusted their legal status, respectively. But a complete report on the number of Korean non-immigrants who have changed their status from alien to permanent is not available.

		TABLE I
	KOREAN RESIDENTS IN AMERICA BY
	IMMIGRATION STATUS
		1950-1969
	Type	Non-
Year	Immigrants	immigrants	Naturalized
1950	10	335	3
1951	32	183	1
1952	127	808	2
1953	115	1,111	46
1954	254	1,270	243
1955	315	2,615	295
1956	703	3,552	155
1957	648	1,798	122
1958	1,604	1,995	168
1959	1,720	1,531	416
1960	1,507	1,504	651
1961	1,534	1,771	1,031
1962	1,538	2,112	1,169
1963	2,580	2,803	1,249
1964	2,362	4,068	1,369
1965	2,165	4,717	1,027
1966	2,492	5,076	1,180
1967	3,395	6,206	1,353
1968	3,811	9,309	1,776
1969	6,045	12,478	1,646
1970	9,314	13,171	1,687
1971	14,297	17,617	2,083
Total	57,129	96,030	17,679

Age and Sex Composition

Table II presents the distribution of the Korean emigrants by age and sex according to the year of their entry. Four major characteristics are to be noticed in the table. First, the number of girls under four years of age constitutes the

						TABLE II
			KOREAN EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA BY AGE AND SEX,	1959-1971
	Year	1959	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970	1971
Age
	Male	15.8	9.6	13.3	7.3	3.5	5.5	5.9	3.8	3.2	3.8	3.9	4.2	4.4
under 4	Female	27.6	21.9	31.5	19.4	9.2	11.5	11.4	9.5	6.5	8.1	7.5	6.9	7.3
5-9	Male	6.1	4.8	5.0	4.1	3.2	3.2	3.7	2.6	3.6	3.1	3.8	3.7	4.2
	Female	6.5	5.0	6.5	4.9	3.7	5.5	4.2	4.7	4.4	4.4	4.1	4.8	4.9
10-19	Male	2.7	2.4	2.6	2.6	2.6	3.3	2.6	3.2	3.3	3.6	2.7	4.1	4.1
	Female	2.6	3.1	3.9	4.0	4.5	6.6	6.5	5.7	6.4	5.8	5.8	5.9	6.0
20-29	Male	2.9	3.9	3.4	4.8	7.0	3.3	2.3	4.2	4.9	5.8	5.9	7.4	6.8
	Female	26.4	37.1	22.4	38.6	46.4	45.3	45.6	39.6	33.5	35.5	35.2	33.1	29.2
30-39	Male	2.3	2.5	2.6	3.7	6.0	2.7	3.2	8.3	13.0	10.1	10.8	10.0	12.7
	Female	4.6	7.4	6.1	7.7	10.9	9.9	11.8	14.0	14.8	12.9	12.5	12.3	12.7
40-49	Male	0.6	0.1	0.4	0.4	0.7	0.3	0.3	1.1	2.0	1.7	1.9	1.9	2.0
	Female	0.5	0.7	0.6	0.7	0.6	1.0	0.6	0.8	1.6	1.6	1.7	2.1	2.1
50-59	Male	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.06	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.7	0.6
	Female	--	0.1	0.1	0.5	0.4	0.3	0.3	0.7	0.8	1.1	1.0	1.0	0.9
60-69	Male		0.1	0.3	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.09	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.3
	Female	0.05	0.06	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.2	0.5	0.7	0.7	0.5	0.6	0.6	0.5
70-79	Male	0.05	--	0.1	0.06	--	0.04	0.04	0.1	0.05	--	0.03	0.08	0.1
	Female			--	--	0.1	0.2	0.04	0.08	0.05	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.2
80	Male			--	--	--	--	0.04	--	--	--	--	0.02	0.01
and over	Female	--	--	--	0.06	--	0.08	--	--	0.02	0.07	0.01	0.02	0.02
	Total	1,717	1,507	1,534	1,538	2,580	2,362	2,165	2,492	3,956	3,811	6,045	9,314	14,297

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28 THE INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW

third largest group. This may be due to a larger number of girls than of boys who were adopted by American families. More girls than boys are brought to orphanages and foster homes in Korea for adoption at home and abroad. Korean families would rather give up their girls for adoption than boys in times of distress. Also, American families seem to prefer girls to boys for adoption. Their choice of girls may be influenced by their concern with the problems of encultu-ration and assimilation of the adopted into American culture. The combination of the two factors seems to have contributed to a disproportionate emigration of girls under four years of age.

Second, the female group of twenty to twenty-nine years of age constitutes the largest group while the female group of thirty to thirty-nine years of age is the second largest group. This is mainly due to the marriages between Korean women and male American citizens. As indicated in Table III, 1,593 out of 1,720 emigrants in 1959 were without gainful employment to be reported to the U.S. immigration authorities at the time of their entry. During the year 1,184 females of all age groups came to America. Although this does not necessarily mean that all females were without an occupation, it may be assumed that a majority of them did not have a significant occupation. Third, the combined number of males and females of the two age groups, namely 20-29 and 30-39, constitutes approximately 61 % of the total during the 1959-1971 period.

If a person is considered most productive between twenty and forty years of age in his life, then a majority of Koreans came to America during their most productive years. Fourth, the total number of male emigrants during the 1959-1971 period was 30%, whereas the aggregate of the females during the same period made up approximately 70%. This is a reverse of the trend that was established by the Korean emigrants during the 1902-1905 period.

Occupational Status on Entry

Table III shows the occupational status of the Korean emigrants at the time of their entry by June 30 of each year from 1959 to 1971. A total of 8,654 persons classified as "professional, technical and kindred workers" came to America during the 1959-1971 period. This constitutes approximately 16.2% of the total during the same period. The number of housewives, children and others with no occupational status who managed to come to America was 77% of the total during the same period.

What kinds of people move from their place of birth to another country across the cultural and/or racial boundaries is one of the essential questions in research on emigration. The answer to this question is to be found in a critical analysis of the age, sex, marital status, level of educational achievement, and occupational status of emigrants at the time of their entry into their new place of

TABLE

III

KOREAN

EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA BY OCCUPATIONAL STATUS, 1959-1971.

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