Seen at Museum of Korean Emigration History, Wolmido, Incheon.

The Korean community in the US remained small for decades, thanks largely to US immigration laws that restricted Asian immigration. But after the end of World War II, and especially during the Korean War, adopted war orphans and war brides entered the US in significant numbers. Korean academics also went often to the US for their studies, and settled afterwards.

In 1965, the civil rights movement changed immigration laws to allow easier Asian immigration. Korean immigration started to take off at that point. South Korea also encouraged many people to emigrate to the US, partly because of the economic poverty and partly because of overpopulation. (Also, the long-term goal was for the Korean emigrants to naturalize in America, and vote in US elections in ways favorable to South Korea's interests.) As Korean immigrants from 1965 on tended to be well-educated and had some money, Koreans went from a very persecuted minority to a model minority pretty quickly.

The Korean immigrant community changed in other ways as well. Before 1965, San Francisco and California's Central Valley had the primary Korean population in the US, but afterwards, Los Angeles took over, and Los Angeles's huge Koreatown became official in 1982, as seen in this photo. Also, the democratic revolution in June 1987 in South Korea led many right-wingers to flee for America into President Reagan's open arms, and combined with Koreatown's suffering in the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the politicization of Christianity in both America and South Korea, Korean-Americans have become a far-right special interest group similar to Cuban and Vietnamese immigrants. (This is another reason why the Korean-Americans are called the "model minority," being lavished tons of praise from the right-wing masters.)

Today, Korean migration to the US has changed again; most South Koreans settling in the US are likely to be skilled professionals looking for better opportunities and living standards, rather than fleeing political turbulence and working odd long hours as had been the traditional case. Many had already entered the US on nonimmigrant work visas before converting their status. And the numbers of new Korean migrants to America, while still significant, are quite down from the McCarthyist exodus days of the late 1980s.

Traditional Korean dancers perform during an immigration reform rally in Washington, DC.