On Tuesday, May 31, 2016, Professor Angie Chung gave a talk titled "The Politics of Ethnicity and Urban Redevelopment in Koreatown, Los Angeles" at KCS (Korean Community Services) as part of RCKC's ongoing regular lecture series. Approximately twenty people were in attendance, and there was an interesting question-and-answer session after the conclusion of Professor Chung's talk.   

Professor Chung presented preliminary findings from her NSF-funded research project on the politics of economic growth and urban redevelopment in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Within a decade after thousands of Korean-owned businesses were destroyed in the 1992 LA riots, Koreatown has experienced a remarkable economic rebirth. This presentation examined some of the factors that have played a role in this turnaround, including the local economic growth of the LA garment industry and transnational investment from abroad. Professor Chung also highlighted the role that political fragmentation and heightened competition among Korean apparel factory owners, as well as competition with Persian Jewish garment industry owners, has played in spurring Koreatown's rapid growth.

Angie Y. Chung is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany. She has served as Visiting Professor at Yonsei and Korea University, and is currently the 2016 Dr. Thomas Tam Visiting Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center and Asian American/ Asian Research Institute (AAARI). She is author of Legacies of Struggle: Conflict and Cooperation in Korean American Politics and a forthcoming book, Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth. Chung has published on the topics of ethnic politics, interethnic coalitions, immigrant families, ethnic enclaves, and the second generation in various journals such as Ethnicities, Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Qualitative Sociology.   

On Tuesday, March 1, 2016, Pyong Gap Min (Director of RCKC and Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center) gave a talk titled "The Intergenerational Progression of the Korean Community: The Problem of Ethnic Attrition." This event took place at KCS (Korean Community Services), located at 35-56 159th Street, Flushing, NY 11358.

Most studies of the acculturation of immigrant ethnic groups have focused on intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. Additionally, many studies have also examined younger-generation Americans' retention of ethnic culture and identity. However, these studies have neglected to look at the flipside of this, which is ethnic attrition or a reduction of ethnic characteristics. Even though acculturation into the host society helps the second generation move up socioeconomically, it coincides with a concomitant reduction in ethnic characteristics. Ethnic retention and ethnic attrition can be understood in different ways, even though they mostly deal with the same phenomena. Professor Min talked about and made some predictions about how quickly Korean ethnic attrition can occur within the Korean community as generations increase. Additionally, he made some policy suggestions regarding pathways toward increasing ethnic retention and slowing down ethnic attrition without compromising immigrant communities' ability to acculturate to the host society. 

On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, the Research Foundation for Korean Community (RFKC) held its annual New Year's Party at the Grandview II at Riverwalk in West New York, New Jersey, which is located right on the Hudson River in the New Jersey Palisades. The event was organized and hosted by the Organizing Committee of the RFKC: Henry Hong Kyun Jung, Young Ki Ham, Hyo Sang Yang, Peter Kihyo Park, Yung Duk Kim, and Hae Min Chung. The event included dinner, karaoke, and dancing.

The Research Foundation for Korean Community (RFKC) is a non-profit foundation that was established to financially support and oversee the research activities of the Research Center for Korean Community (RCKC). RFKC collects donations from the community and regularly organizes fundraising events on behalf of RCKC. We at the RCKC look forward to a productive 2016, and we would like to thank RFKC and its dedicated members for their support. 

On November 24, 2015, there was a small ceremony to acknowledge the donation of JoongAng Ilbo newspapers from 1986 to 2000 to RCKC. Jongsuk Sung, the former editor-in-chief of JoongAng Ilbo from 1985 to 2004, was kind enough to donate over ten years of archives of the daily newspaper. These issues are a nice addition to RCKC's large archive of books, academic journals, and newspapers focusing on Korean Americans that are housed within our center's mini-library. A few years ago, we received issues of The Korea Times from 1977 to 1988. Since most Korean-language newspapers' online archives start at 2001, there was a twelve-year gap between 1988 and 2000 prior to receiving these papers from Ms. Sung. The 1986-2000 issues of the JoongAng Ilbo will bridge this gap nicely, and along with the old issues of The Korea Times, they are important historical documents for the Korean community.

The ceremony was attended by a current reporter from the JoongAng Ilbo, Pyong Gap Min (Director of RCKC), Jane Cho (Director of Administration, Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College), Jae Gi Kim (RCKC Visiting Scholar from Korea), Yongshin Cho (Queens College Visiting Scholar/Artist from Korea), some students from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and staff members of RCKC.

We would like to thank Ms. Sung for her wonderful gift, and we will put the newspapers to good use in our current and future research.