Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Greengrocers in New York City (review)

Following conflicts between Korean American entrepreneurs and African American customers and community activists during the late 1980s and early 1990s-including the Los Angeles uprising of 1992 and several boycotts of Korean businesses in New York City during the late 1980s and early 1990s-a considerable number of books and articles were published about Korean merchants, the reasons for their extensive involvement as ghetto business owners, and their relationships with African Americans.

Since that time, Korean American entrepreneurship has not been very visible in the mass media, and few academic reports have informed us about this group's ongoing adjustment to American society. Notably, we have heard very little about how and why a group so embroiled in racial/ethnic conflicts has been able to extract itself from contentious relations in such a short time. This is an especially important question for students of urban sociology and racial and ethnic relations, because racial and economic conditions in American cities have not changed very much during recent years.

The book's author, a prolific scholar and one of the leading experts on the Korean American community, describes how this group has progressed since the early 1990s. He reveals how changing patterns in American immigration and urban life have transformed Koreans' relations with inner-city customers.

Korean entrepreneurs reduced their involvement in conflict-ridden retail businesses, and instead became more active in service industries like dry cleaners that yield fewer disputes and attract more affluent customers. In addition, since the 1990s thousands of immigrants representing diverse nationalities have entered American cities. These new arrivals have served to diversify urban populations as well as groups involved in entrepreneurship.

During the early 1990s, African Americans were the major customers and Koreans were the major business owners in many urban locations. By the late 1990s, however, many other groups-including Latinos, Africans, and Caribbeans-resided in inner cities, and various nationalities-including Dominicans, Arabs, South Asians, and others-owned shops. Finally, corporate businesses that had abandoned inner-city areas in the 1960s had begun to return. As a consequence, urban settings no longer maintain a dynamic whereby Koreans and African Americans face each other in tense circumstances.

Scholars of international migration and the informed public are generally aware of Korean American entrepreneurs' rocky relations with African American customers and activists. However, African Americans are not the only group that has had disputes with Korean entrepreneurs. The author brings to light several other important conflicts that have challenged Korean entrepreneurs. These include difficult relationships with suppliers and landlords (many of whom are white ethnic entrepreneurs), unions, government officials, and representatives of the U.S. media.

Challenges from unions are especially difficult because entrepreneurs often fail to comply with minimum wage and overtime laws and hence have no legitimate means to justify their opposition to pickets. Revealing their pragmatism, members of a task force dedicated to resolving conflicts with unions invited Soon Young Hong, the director of a Los Angeles labor movement that represents Korean and Latino workers against Korean employers, to offer advice on how to avoid labor disputes in New York.

In this cogently argued book, Min shows how extensive organizational activity by Korean greengrocers helped them address these disagreements. Working together, business owners countered bad publicity, demanded fair treatment from politicians, raised money for co-ethnics as well as the larger community and charities in Korea, and provided themselves with benefits. Min shows how Korean entrepreneurs relied on high levels of ethnic solidarity to address their conflicts. Once conflicts subsided, so did levels of ethnic solidarity.

Nevertheless, members of the Korean Produce Association continued to cooperate and provide philanthropy and assistance to the country of origin, while encouraging the celebration of Korean holidays in the United States. In documenting this, the book contributes to our understanding of Korean American transnationalism.

Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Greengrocers in...