Not long after Chang Park's arrival from South Korea four years ago, the reality of his predicament became painfully clear: Life in the United States was going to be harder than expected.
A lack of English frustrated his efforts to complete the simplest of tasks. He faced ill treatment, even from fellow Koreans. Worst of all, he couldn't find a decent paying job.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday April 26, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Koreatown meeting -- A caption in Sunday's California section with an article about the economic plight of workers in Koreatown identified Kyeyoung Park as an assistant professor of anthropology and Asian studies at UCLA. She is an associate professor of anthropology and Asian American studies.
"It did not take much time to figure out that my income is not even close to what it needs to be to cover the basic needs of my family," Park, 50, who has held a variety of unskilled jobs in Koreatown grocery stores and makes about $6.75 an hour, said Saturday. "It was impossible to make a living with this low hourly wage."
Park related his experience to a community gathering of more than 150 residents, business leaders and representatives of elected officials called to focus on the economic plight of workers in Koreatown.
Thirteen years after riots in South Los Angeles ravaged scores of Korean-owned businesses, many entrepreneurs relocated to Koreatown, rebuilt and thrived. But Koreatown's residents and workers are still suffering, and are poorer than ever, according to community leaders, academicians and civil activists. Among the hardest hit are recently arrived emigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
"While the business sector of the community has been progressing, the residents and workers are living in poverty," said Danny Park, executive director of the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, a workers support group. "The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening."
Although the city does not officially delineate specific boundaries for Koreatown, community leaders and residents generally view the neighborhood as being bound by Hoover Street to the east, Wilton Place to the west, Pico Boulevard on the south and Beverly Boulevard on the north.
A report recently published by Park's group found that some 50% of residents in Koreatown are Latino, 20% are Korean, 25% white and 5% African American. The largely immigrant population is mainly employed in unskilled nonunion jobs, with virtually no benefits, in the service sector, retail trade and restaurant industry, the report concluded.
It also found that 70% of the population in Koreatown, where a typical family of four makes less than $36,800 a year, could be classified as working poor. The area's median household income is $20,000, compared with the national average of $42,000. Families are surviving on 83% of the income they had in 1990. And the average hourly pay in Korean supermarkets, the neighborhood's largest employers, is around $7.
