Where Latinos Speak Korean
Se habla español in LA’s Koreatown. Photo by Hunhee.
Multiculturalism is usually framed in terms of the relationship between immigrants and a “host society.” But what about the relationship between immigrants themselves? In Los Angeles’ sprawling Koreatown, a growing population of Latino immigrants is leading to a cultural and linguistic exchange that is unprecedented in recent American history.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal describes the trend: “At the Galleria, a large Korean supermarket here, store manager Yoonah Yoon greets Hispanic cashiers and bag boys each morning with a hearty ‘buenos dias’—‘good morning’ in Spanish. The Latino workers, who make up more than half the store’s 162 employees, answer him with the equivalent greeting in Korean: ‘Ahn-nyung-hah-seh-yo.'”
Korean immigrants began settling along Wilshire Boulevard in the 1960s, gradually establishing a vast Korean neighbourhood that eventually became the epicentre of the world’s largest Korean community outside of Asia. Eventually, most of the neighbourhood’s Korean residents decamped for other neighbourhoods and suburbs around Los Angeles, motivated in no small part by the 1992 riots that targeted Korean-owned businesses above all. Over the course of the 1990s, Koreatown became home to a new wave of immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Despite the area’s changing demographics, Koreatown remained the most important hub of commerce and culture for the Los Angeles Korean community. In fact, in recent years, Korean investment in the neighbourhood has increased, including the construction in 2001 of a $40-million Korean spa and a new Korean shopping mall.
That’s where things get interesting. Many of these Korean businesses draw their employees (and, in some cases, customers) from the surrounding area’s largely Latino population. The relationship is such that many Koreans business owners are learning Spanish—and many Latino workers are learning Korean.
“These days, English isn’t the second language of choice anymore for some immigrants settling in the U.S. In the city that is home to the country’s largest foreign-born population, many Spanish- and Korean-speaking immigrants are choosing to learn each other’s language before they tackle English,” explains the Journal.
To meet soaring demand for Spanish proficiency, Korean churches, community centers and language schools are offering both introductory and advanced classes — usually for a nominal fee. Korean-language newspapers also carry ads for Spanish-language classes and tutors by the dozens. “Grow Your Business!” says one pitch. “Free Introductory Spanish Class!” promises another. One ad mentions that Korean children are welcome, too.
More than a courtesy, the language exchange is born out of economic necessity. Korean immigrants here often open liquor stores, garment factories and other small businesses that don’t necessarily require English language skills to run them. Their employees, by and large, consist of another group of recent immigrants who don’t speak English — mostly Mexicans and Central Americans. The upshot: Many Korean business owners figure it’s more urgent to learn Spanish than it is to master English.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Koreans are learning Spanish. After all, there are now more Spanish-speakers in Los Angeles than English-speakers; and even if hispanophones generally have lower incomes and social status than anglophones, their influence is growing as new generations of Latin Americans establish themselves in LA. What is truly remarkable, however, is that many Latino residents of Koreatown are actually learning Korean.
Typically, Koreans who enroll in language classes are interested in learning conversational Spanish relevant to their trade. Hispanics generally pick up Korean—whose characters and grammar are especially tough to master—on the job. Even so, Latino workers here have come to see the benefits of tackling the language.
Among the Mexican workers at the Galleria grocery is Rúben Hernandez. In three years he has risen from an apron-wearing bag boy to a necktie-sporting front manager, thanks to picking up Korean informally from his colleagues and friends. The 30-year-old immigrant also speaks English. But, because he spends the day dealing with Koreans, “I think I speak Korean just as well as English now,” he says.
Many Korean customers, particularly elderly women like Soo Park, seek out Mr. Hernandez, who always greets her in Korean as he breaks into a wide grin that exposes his metal braces. The other day, Mrs. Park approached the Mexican employee to double-check the price she had paid for a bundle of large, deep-green sesame leaves. After their exchange in Korean, she noted in broken English: “I like him. He helps me with everything. He gives me good service.”
At a checkout line, Aron Hernandez, no relation to the other Mr. Hernandez, recited in Korean the name of each item he shoved into plastic bags: cabbage (“bae-chu”), strawberries (“dahlkee”), rice (“sahl”). When a customer asked him a question in Korean, he approached a supervisor and asked her to “please check the receipt”—in Korean.
Since he both lives and works in Koreatown, he says, “I couldn’t help but learn some Korean.” As for English, he says he could do with more practice — though he repeats the phrase “please check the receipt,” this time in English, to prove he has mastered some phrases in the tongue of his adopted country.
What I find most exciting about the above passage is that it is Korean, not English, that seems to be the language of success for many Latino workers in Koreatown. This linguistic blending is leading to other examples of cultural fusion. One blogger reports that kimchee is popular with Latinos and, “on the food shelves of the Korean grocery markets, Korean items like kim sit alongside tortillas, tofu next to Mexican cheese.”
This might be an extremely localized phenomenon, but it speaks to the potential of multiculturalism—and I’m referring to the literal definition of the word, not the various political and philosophical interpretations of it—to foster new and previously inconceivable cultural exchanges.
A somewhat related article appeared in the New York Times earlier this week.
[…] Even though Korean Americans are the largest ethnic group populating Koreatown, a large Hispanic population is also represented, with many of the Korean businesses hiring its Hispanic residents. This multiculturalism has caused a growth in Koreans who speak Spanish, and an increase in Hispanics who have learned Korean. […]
there is further hybridization when it comes to the street cuiaine. Since no two city departments have the same configuration for Koreatown, the blending of ethnic enclaves is actually quite common, making it part and parcel for why it’s such an exciting place to live.
In recent years, many of the Central American or Southern Mexican immigrants actually speak Spanish as a second language, mixing it up even more –and the Korean or Spanish reggaeton the teens listen to will render your dictionary useless (but as long as it has a good beat to dance to…)