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Korean America — migration to the United States and the commercial districts it built.

A dense commercial block with signage stacked three storeys high

One clause came out of the immigration law. Twenty years later the census was counting eleven times as many people, and most of what that change built was a shopfront.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

Retail at the kerb, services above it — each plate is a separate tenancy.
1970
69,130
1980
354,593
1990
798,849
1970 · 1980 · 1990, plotted to scale — elevenfold in twenty years

Korean population of the United States — U.S. Census, single-race basis, three enumerations.

Twenty households, one pot

The money came from the table before any bank would lend it

A kye is a closed savings club, and the arithmetic is the whole instrument: a fixed group, a fixed contribution, and one member taking the entire pot each round until the circle closes.

20households × $500each, monthly = $10,000to one household, once
× 20rounds = $200,000paid in, and paid out, in full · 0%interest, either way
What a position is worth
PositionReceivesStill owesEffectively holds
01$10,000 in month 119 × $500An interest-free loan
10$10,000 in month 1010 × $500Neither, and both
20$10,000 in month 20nothingInterest-free savings, on a schedule

Twenty households at five hundred dollars a month is the worked example given in the section; group size, contribution and interval all varied, and the mechanism did not.

MONTH 1MONTH 6MONTH 11MONTH 16 $10,000 THE POT, EACH ROUND 20 ROUNDS TO CLOSE
  • Paid out already
  • Drawing this round
  • Still paying in

One square is one household. The mark advances by one position every round, so after twenty rounds each household has taken the pot exactly once and paid in nineteen times.

Supported by

Shops and associations documented here.

Five streets, and what each one sells

Five districts, five different shapes on the ground

The Embassy building's rooftop sign rises above a white multi-story building with palm trees Olympic Boulevard Koreatown, Los Angeles A named district with a boundary and a press of its own Photo: Embassy Apartments roof sign, Koreatown Los Angeles · Wikimedia Commons A brick ranch house with a red maple tree, front lawn, and sidewalk in autumn Little River Turnpike Annandale, Virginia Read from a car, not a pavement Photo: Annandale - Virginia - 2015 · Wikimedia Commons Crates of produce stacked on a pavement outside a store Northern Boulevard Flushing, Queens Where the produce trade meets the street A street sign on a pole against a plain sky Lawrence Avenue Albany Park, Chicago Honorary Seoul Drive A small grocery interior with the owner behind the counter Pleasant Hill Road Duluth, Georgia The newest of the five, and the most suburban
A commission report open on a table

Stated from the published findings, and not at length

The Los Angeles civil unrest of that year fell heavily on Korean-owned businesses in the city. The section here works from the record: the Webster Commission's report on the police response, the state Assembly's special committee on the rest, and the insurance claims.