Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots

Nancy Abelmann; John Lie

Published by Harvard University Press 1995

Blue Dreams

Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots

Nancy Abelmann and John Lie

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674020030

Overview
Contents

About this book

The situation of Los Angeles’s Korean Americans touches on some of American society’s most vexing issues: ethnic conflict, urban poverty, immigration, multiculturalism, and ideological polarization. Combining interviews and sociohistorical analysis, Abelmann gives these problems a human face and clarifies the factors that render them so complex.

Reviews

An informed and thoughtful examination of Korean immigration to the United States since 1970… [Abelmann and Lie] show that even in a period as short as twenty-five years, there have been successive waves of differently motivated, differently resourced Korean immigrants, and their experiences and reactions have differed accordingly.
-- Michael Tonry Times Literary Supplement

[The authors’] transnational perspective is particularly effective for explicating Korean immigrants’ behaviors, activities, and feelings… Interesting and readable.
-- Pyong Gap Min American Journal of Sociology

Beginning with a poetic book title, the authors recount in depth as to how the ‘Blue Dreams’ of the Korean-American merchants in East Los Angeles had shattered in the midst of [the] 1992 riot that turned out to be ‘elusive dreams’ in America… The book not only portrays the L.A. riot surrounding the Korean merchants, but also characterizes diaspora of the Koreans in America. The authors have also examined with scholarly insights the more complex socioeconomic and political underplay the Koreans encountered in their ‘Promised New Land.’
-- Eugene C. Kim International Migration Review

Blue Dreams—a poetic allusion to the clear blue sky that Koreans see as a symbol of freedom—is a welcome exploration by outsiders into the vexing and largely invisible Korean-American predicament in Los Angeles and the nation. [Abelmann and Lie’s] colorful interview subjects offer sharp observations.
-- K. W. Lee Los Angeles Times

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
1. The Los Angeles Riots, the Korean American Story Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Reckoning via the Riots Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
3. Diaspora Formation: Modernity and Mobility Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4. Mapping the Korean Diaspora in Los Angeles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
5. Korean American Entrepreneurship Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
6. American Ideologies on Trial Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 288

eBook

Published: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780674020030