Koreans in the Hood: Conflict with African Americans

This volume of essays, written largely by Korean-American scholars, seeks to add to our understanding of interracial, multi-ethnic conflict by examining relations between the Korean-American and African-American communities in three major American cities: Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Edited by sociologist Kwang Chung Kim, the book brings together similar yet contrasting studies of Korean-American and African-American conflict. Korean Americans find themselves economically powerful, but weak politically. African Americans, however, wield considerable political clout even though they may have little economic power. This work offers the Korean-American perspective on co-existing with African Americans in some of the poorest areas of American cities. Each chapter focuses on a particular city and experience, offering an opportunity for inter-city comparison as the contributors explore three overt forms of Korean-American and African-American confrontation: dispute, boycott and mass violence. The first part of the book examines Korean-American experience of the conflict in Los Angeles. It then details the social, political and economic tensions arising from the African-American boycott of Korean fruit and vegetable merchants in New York. The final chapters concern the Korean-American experience of conflict in Chicago. Throughout, the authors rely on empirical data and seek to trace the roots of conflict, the consequences, and the future directions of relations between the two groups. What emerges is an account of Korean Americans caught between the poor African-American population and the larger, more affluent white population.