GROWTH OF THE KOREAN POPULATION AND CHANGES IN THEIR SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OVER TIME, 1990-2008 Pyong Gap Min Queens College and the Graduate Center of CUNY and Chigon Kim Wright State University RESEARCH CENTER FOR KOREAN COMMUNITY QUEENS COLLEGE OF CUNY Research Report No.2 March 16, 2010 0 I: Introductory Remarks The first research report released on December 3, 2009 includes the senior author’s review of the literature on Korean American studies and an expanded bibliography. Many readers have sent me e-mail and telephone messages, telling me that it is very useful to them. The second research report focuses on analyzing changes in Korean Americans’ settlement patters between 1990 and 2008. The first research report may be more useful to graduate students and scholars conducting research on Korean Americans than to lay Korean Americans. Data included in this report focusing on changes in growth in the Korean population in the United States and settlement patterns among Korean Americans between 1990 and 2008 are likely to be more useful to non- academic practitioners--community leaders, owners of businesses largely to catering Korean customers, including Korean restaurants and real estate agencies, social serve agencies, the Korean Consulate Generals in major Korean population centers, and the Korean government. From the beginning of the census enumeration, the U.S. Census Bureau did not include any question about religion because American forefathers were afraid of the possibility that information about religion was used for persecution of minority religious groups. For the same reason, the U.S. Census has continued to ask no question about religion. This means that religious groups like Jewish Americans and Muslims cannot find official statistics about their own groups. Due to the absence of data about its own group in census reports, the Jewish American community has conducted a large-scale 1 National Jewish Population Surveys every ten years. The most recent National Jewish Population Survey, conducted for twelve months between August 2000 and August 2001, interviewed about 2,500 Jewish respondents by telephone. Not only to interview 2,500 Jewish households, but also to screen Jewish households from the randomly selected households, the research team spent a great deal of time and money. The Jewish community has conducted many other large surveys, such as the American Jewish Identity Survey. The Korean community does not have to conduct a national Korean American survey involving high costs and energy and a great deal of time because the U.S. Census Bureau includes questions about race and Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic origin. We are lucky to get major statistics about our population size and population characteristics from census data, the largest survey data available in the United States. Until 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau had conducted the major censuses involving a short form and a long form every ten years. But, from 2001 on, it has conducted the American Community Survey every year, replacing the earlier long form. It will continue the decennial census involving a short form every ten years, thus taking another decennial census this March. Since the American Community Survey involving a long form has a small sample size (2.6%) compared to the decennial census, we cannot enumerate the Korean population size and settlement patterns accurately at this point. Nevertheless, we may be able to provide a glimpse of the direction of changes in Korean Americans’ settlement patterns using the most recent American Community Survey available. Thus we decided to analyze the 2008 American Community Survey compared to the 2000 and 1990 2 Censuses for our center’s Second Research Report, instead of waiting for the 2010 decennial census. But we present major findings about changes in Korean Americans’ settlement patterns from the 2008 American Community Survey with much caution. We should be able to determine whether major changes in Koreans’ settlement patterns discerned from the 2008 American Community Survey will hold true when results of the 2010 Census are available in 2012. We did not need census data to complete the First Research Report, providing an annotated bibliography, published and released last December. But the current (Second) and most of the following Research Reports to be released by our center will be based on census data, especially American Community Surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau every year. As already pointed out, the American Community Survey for a single year does not have a sample large enough for statistical analysis on the Korean population. But we can combine three or five years of the American Community Surveys to increase the sample size. Using the combined American Community Surveys, we can not only estimate Korean population size and settlement patterns, but also examine population characteristics. In this report, we used the 2008 American Community Survey, along with the 1970, 1980 and 1990 decennial censuses for the population estimation and settlement patterns. We used the 2005-2007 Combined American Community Surveys to examine Korean population characteristics. The current research report consists of four different sections. The first section including two tables and two figures show the growth of the Korean population in the United States between 1970 and 2008 and the foreign-born 3 and native-born distributions for single-race and multi-racial Korean populations. The second section examines changes in Korean Americans’ settlement patterns by looking at changes in the proportions of the Korean population in major metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2008. Three tables and two figures are provided in this section. The third section looks at changes in the Korean population in the New York-New Jersey CMSA (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area), New York City boroughs and adjacent suburban counties, and Flushing-Bayside Korean enclaves in Queens Professor Chigon Kim of Wright State University is an expert in analyzing census data. As a data analyst of our center he did all data analyses for this research report. He will continue to analyze census data for our center for the coming research reports and other major survey studies our center will conduct in the future. Prof. Kim may be the only Korean sociologist in the United States who can undertake analyzing census data with such efficiency and accuracy. As Director of the center, I feel lucky to find such an ideal data analyst for the center. II: Growth of the Korean Population and the Foreign-Born vs. Native-Born Distribution Figure 1 below provides a general picture of the Korean population growth in the United States between 1970 and 2008. Table 1 gives statistics for the Korean population in different decennial years and 2008. The 1970s Census counted less than 70,000 Koreans in the United States. Assuming the Census underestimated the Korean population, the actual number may have been a little more than 70,000 in 1970. Given that the total number of Koreans who immigrated to the United States between 1903 and 1969 is 4 approximately 42,200 (Barringer, Gardner and Levin 1995: 24-25), the Korean population can be said to have achieved a high level of natural growth. Figure 1. Growth of Korean Population, 1970-2008 Sources: U.S. Bureau of Census, 1970, 1990, 2000, 2008. Congress passed the new liberalized immigration laws in 1965, abolishing the earlier race-based discriminatory immigration laws. The 1965 Immigration Act began to be in full effect in 1968. As a result of the enforcement of the new Immigration Act, the Korean population achieved a five-fold increase in the 1970s, from 69,150 in 1970 to 354,953 in 1980. It further increased to approximately 800,000 in 1990, achieving a two- 5 fold increase in the the1980s. Beginning from the 2000 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau allowed the respondents with mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds (children of intermarried parents) to choose two or more racial and ethnic categories. As a result, we have two separate figures of the Korean population for 2000 and 2008, for those who chose the Korean category alone (“Korean alone”) and those who chose the Korean category and one or more additional categories (“Korean in Combination”). In 1990 and before, children of Korean-other intermarried couples chose either the Korean, the other racial-ethic category of the non-Korean parent, or “others.” Thus, approximately 800,000 Korean Americans counted by the 1990 Census must have included a moderate number of multiracial/multi-ethnic Koreans. Table 1: Growth of Korean Population, 1970-2008 1970 1980 1990 2000 2008 Korean Alone 69,150 354,593 798,849 1,076,872 1,372,152 (87.7%) (89.6%) Korean in XX XX XX 151,555 160,033 Combination (12.3%) (10.4%) Total 69,150 354,593 798,849 1,228,427 1,532,185 (100.0%) (100.0%) Source: U.S. Bureau of Census (1970, 1990, 2000, 2008). Note: The Korean American population in 2008 is estimated from the 2008 American Community Survey. The single-race Korean population in 2008 was approximately 1.4 million, about 300,000 (27.4%) increase from 1,077,000 in 2000. Including about 160,000 multiracial Koreans, the total Korean population in 2008 was over 1.5 million. Single-race Korean Americans comprised the fifth largest Asian group, following the Chinese (2,998,849), 6 Indian (2,495,998), Filipino (2,425,697) and Vietnamese (1,431,980) groups. Among six major Asian groups, only the Japanese population (710,063) is smaller than the Korean population. The Chinese population is more than twice as large as the Korean population. The significant reduction of the Korean immigration flow since the late 1980s (see Min 2006a) has been the major factor for the slower increase in the Korean population relative to other Asian populations.