Korean-Black Relationships in Greater New York

Abstract

This paper examines Korean-black relationships in Greater New York in the past and at present. It also provides the author’s suggestions to improve the relationships between the two communities in the future. Korean immigrants encountered severe business-related conflicts with black customers in black neighborhoods during the 1980-1995 period. Their business-related conflicts have disappeared since the mid-1990s, as they stopped their business activities there. But the Korean community is residentially highly segregated from and has maintained only a moderate level of interactions with the black community. To strengthen the ties with the black community, Korean immigrants need education on blacks’ history and their current suffering of structural racism.