History of Korean Immigrants

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Immigrant in United States had me thought a lot about immigrants, more specifically Korean immigrants. I chose to focus on Korean immigrants because the city that I come from, Orange County, California, has a large Asian population. I do have some friends that are actually from another country and I would hear comment about green card, immigrant acts, their home country, and citizenship status. My hometown is the one that influenced me to research about the history of Korean immigrant.
January 13, 1903, first group of Korean immigrants arrived to Hawaii for work and/or school. Korean immigrants grow only little by little. The unique part of that decade is Picture Brides. It is another term for mail-order bride. Korean male immigrants in United States at the time tend to get lonely and want to marry Korean woman. They would send pictures to Korea and find someone that is willing to marry him and move to United States (Women’s History in Public: “Picture Brides” of Hawaii). I find that quite unique and it’s actually common during early 1900s.
Due to an increasing population of Asian immigrants, governments created Immigrant Act of 1924, also known as Johnson Reed Act. The purpose of that act is to exclude all immigrants, especially Asians from entering to United States (Bureau of Public Affairs). Due to that act, it did actually decrease the numbers of immigrants from Asia, even the Picture Brides. Korean cannot immigrate to American for almost twenty-five years.
Fast-forwarding to late 1940s, I noticed that in the United States census, there’s a sudden increase number of Korean immigrants population. Based on my research, that’s when the Korean War started. There are series of events that happened during that time. June 25, 1...

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City, NY: NYU.

Immigration Act of 1924. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, U.S.
Department of States website: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-
1936/immigration-act

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, from
U.S. Department of States website: https://history.state.gov/milestones/19451952/immigration-act

Immigration Explorer. (2009, March 10). Retrieved November 3, 2013, from New York
Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html Korean War. (2013). In The Hutchinson Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/korean_war Post-War Years. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, from U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services website: http://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/agency-history/post-war-years

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