Korean Community Spreading Out

The distinctive four-block strip of shops, restaurants and car dealerships along Garden Grove Boulevard remains the heart of Orange County’s Koreatown. But these days you’re just as likely to find Korean American businesses in Irvine, Fullerton or Buena Park.

The steady migration of Korean Americans from Los Angeles to outlying suburbs, including communities in Orange County, was accelerated by the riots of 1992 and contributed to the growth of the local Koreatown.

But in recent years, those residents have dispersed further into cities across Orange County in search of good schools and safe neighborhoods. And businesses have followed, establishing satellite “Koreatowns” for the about 150,000 Korean Americans who live in the county, business and civic leaders say.

From dry cleaners to restaurateurs to grocery retailers, Korean merchants have followed their community.

“When I first moved here 10 years ago, we always came to Koreatown--to shop, to eat, to meet friends. But now my wife can do all her shopping in Fullerton,” said James Cho, president of the Korean American Chamber of Commerce in Orange County. “The businesses have moved to where we live.”

The migration pattern unfolding here is typical of most immigrant groups, said Eunai Shrake, Asian American studies professor at UC Irvine.

Historically, immigrants tend to settle in an urban ethnic center where they live and set up businesses. For Korean Americans coming to Southern California, that meant Koreatown in Los Angeles, she said. Like other immigrants, Korean Americans moved out to the suburbs as they became more prosperous and more assimilated, seeking educational opportunities for their children and safer neighborhoods. The riots in 1992 simply sped up that migration process, she said.

Along with the San Fernando Valley, Orange County was a popular destination for many of these residents. Local leaders here say the population of Korean Americans--estimated by the U.S. Census at 37,000 in 1990--more than doubled after the riots. In the last seven years, the population nearly doubled again.

The influx during the 1980s and 1990s did much to energize Garden Grove, which was home to a fledgling Korean business district born in the 1970s. Today the city boasts 1,300 Korean-owned businesses, about 900 of them along Garden Grove Boulevard alone.

“When Koreans first moved here, the boulevard was deteriorating,” said Garden Grove Councilman Ho Chung. “Koreans came here because there was a lot of empty storefronts and rent was cheap.”

Though Korean Americans settled all over Orange County, they would drive to Koreatown to socialize and shop for ethnic goods they couldn’t find elsewhere in the county, said Chung.

“This is still the heart of the community,” he said. “People were willing to come from far away to shop here. But when businesses saw that, they thought ‘We should open a store where people are living.’ ”

In the last two or three years, small clusters of Korean American businesses have sprouted in residential communities like Fullerton, Cerritos and Irvine to meet the growing demand for convenience services.

That was the mind-set of the Los Angeles-based Hannam grocery chain, which opened a 54,000-square-foot Super 1 Mart in Buena Park last September.

Since the grocery store opened on Beach Boulevard, several restaurants, an insurance company, a travel agency and an automotive shop have settled nearby, said general manager Sam Sohn.

Some community leaders worry that the new satellite centers are drawing away customers from the county’s Koreatown.

“We really like to promote business in Garden Grove for Koreans. This is the center of Korean American business. Some open businesses in other places to make it convenient. But it means losing customers here,” said Raymond Choi, a former Chamber of Commerce president.

But business owners in the other areas disagree, saying their move to suburban areas benefits the whole Korean American community.

“It’s not our goal to go into Koreatown to wipe out the competition,” said Super 1 Mart’s Sohn.