A Korean American is a person of Korean ancestry who was either born in or is an immigrant to the United States.
Although there were earlier immigrants to the U.S., Korean immigration to the U.S. is widely accepted as having begun January 13, 1903, when laborers arrived in Hawaii to work on sugar plantations. More began arriving after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.
As of 2000, Korean Americans numbered some 1.1 million, with large concentrations in California, New York, and New Jersey. In addition, about one-tenth of Korean Americans are adoptees who are or have been raised by mainly white families; they may be found anywhere in the country, and in most cases they do not have Korean names.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade counted 2,157,498 ethnic Koreans living in the U.S. in 2003.
Jay Kim is the first Korean who was elected as U.S. congressman in 1993, and Chang-rae Lee is the first Korean writer who got PEN/Hemingway Award.
For more notable Korean Americans, see this list.
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