Central Americans in the Pico-Union district and Japanese Americans in Little Tokyo have nervously monitored the expansion of Korean businesses and residents into their ethnic enclaves. In Artesia, some residents opposed proposals to designate Pioneer Boulevard as Little India because of the city's diverse ethnic makeup.
And a decade ago, the Thai community won a city designation of Thai Town along Hollywood Boulevard between Normandie and Western avenues -- only to see their district encircled soon after by Little Armenia.
Immigrants from the South Asian nation now known as Bangladesh have been moving to Los Angeles since at least the 1960s, driven by poverty and natural disasters. For many of them, Koreatown is the first port of call due to the neighborhood's low rent, cultural familiarity and business opportunities, Haque said.
Although the 2000 census counted just 157 Bangladeshis in Koreatown, a survey conducted five years later by the South Asian Network and the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research suggested a population of 6,000 to 8,000, Khan said.
Since then, the Bangladeshi American community says that its numbers have swelled to more than 10,000. Last year, proponents filed a petition with the city to designate the area from Third Street to Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue to Western Avenue as "Little Bangladesh."
The proposal would have taken out the heart of what most Angelenos think of as Koreatown, said Grace Yoo, executive director of the Korean American Coalition's Los Angeles chapter.
"There's so much in a name," she said. "This is where I get food I'm familiar with. It's where I come for ingredients that aren't available elsewhere. It's where I've been meeting up with my friends for decades. It's a piece of your own history. For someone else to come in and say sorry that's not it, really causes people to get heated."
Although the city never formally defined the neighborhood, Koreatown has been identified on maps since the 1980s. In February, members of the Korean American community filed their own petition asking the city to recognize Koreatown as the area from Melrose Avenue and Beverly Boulevard to the north; Pico and Olympic boulevards to the south; Vermont Avenue and Hoover Street to the east; and Wilton Place and Crenshaw Boulevard to the west.
