The Korean American Dream Contributor(s): Park, Kyeyoung (Author) |
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ISBN: 0801483913 ISBN-13: 9780801483912 Publisher: Cornell University Press OUR PRICE: $33.61 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 1997 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Minority Studies - Social Science | Emigration & Immigration - Business & Economics | Small Business - General |
Dewey: 338.642 |
LCCN: 97-3083 |
Lexile Measure: 1190 |
Series: Anthropology of Contemporary Issues (Paperback) |
Physical Information: 0.62" H x 6.06" W x 9.14" (0.78 lbs) 256 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Ethnic Orientation - Korean - Geographic Orientation - New York |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Korean immigrants to the United States establish their own small businesses at a rate exceeding that of immigrants from any other nation, with more than one third of all Korean immigrant adults involved in small businesses. Kyeyoung Park examines this phenomenon in Queens, New York, tracing its historical bases and exploring the transformation of Korean cultural identity prompted by participation in an enterprise. Park documents the ways in which Korean immigrants use entrepreneurship to improve the quality of their lives, focusing on their concerns and anxieties, as well as their joys. The concept of anjong is crucial to the lives of first-generation Korean Americans in Queens, Park explains. The word may be translated as establishment, stability, or security, and it identifies a particular concept of success through which Koreans make sense of the American ideology of opportunity. What they seek is not great wealth or social position but rather the creation of their own small businesses as a way of realizing the American dream. The pursuit of anjong is important enough to justify changes in gender and kinship relations, resulting in the rise of a Korean American women-centered and sister-initiated kinship structure. Commitment to the concept has also inspired a different understanding of class, ethnicity, and race, and stimulated new religious ideas and practices. |
Contributor Bio(s): Park, Kyeyoung: - Kyeyoung Park is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. |