Title: “Beyond the Bootstrap: How Korean Banks and U.S. Government Institutions Contribute to Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States” (Department of Sociology at Temple University)

Abstract

This study interrogates the disadvantage theory as an explanation for Korean immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States. Meant to replace cultural explanations of immigrant entrepreneurship, the disadvantage theory posits that certain ethnic and racial groups, particularly those with an immigrant background, become concentrated in small business in response to limited opportunities in the primary labor market. Additionally, scholars claim that Korean immigrants do not receive loans or support from financial or U.S. government institutions. As such, proponents of the disadvantage thesis reproduce the same cultural explanations that the approach was meant to displace. That is, we are to conclude that Korean immigrants are self-sufficient because they are over-represented in small business ownership despite being disadvantaged when it comes to both getting jobs in the primary labor market and accessing capital and resources from major U.S. institutions. Marshalling a range of economic data as well as drawing from interviews with 81 representatives of Korean banks and seven federal government institutions based in Los Angeles and New York, I demonstrate that Korean immigrants receive various forms of support from both institutions. I show how the federal government actively assists Korean immigrants through both specific and seemingly non-racial approaches. I also explore how Korean immigrants have access to a relatively developed economic infrastructure in terms of a Korean banking industry in the United States. As I find, government institutions primarily work with Koreans through their banks, which in turn helps reinforce the image of ethnic self-sufficiency. This myth of self-sufficiency is the logical extension of the disadvantage thesis, a point explored through my investigation of respondents’ explanations for Koreans’ concentration in small business ownership. I describe how respondents’ beliefs that Koreans are disadvantaged were coupled with three dimensions of colorblind racial ideology, including an unwillingness to consider the role of racial ideology and their own institutions in shaping stratification, cultural racism, and the rhetorical incorporation of Asian Americans into a universalized immigrant trajectory. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of my findings for future research on race, ethnicity, immigration, ethnic banking, government institutions, entrepreneurship, and stratification.