Where have all the Korean grocers gone? Once New York was litered with 24-hour Korean-owned greengrocers, especially in poorer neighborhoods, but now they seem to quickly be a thing of the past. Enter the recent winter issue of City Journal, which has a lengthy look at where they've gone. The results are both interesting and not that surprising. The short answer? The American Dream.
First off, the gentrification of the city over the past twenty years brought with it fancier stores and chains which have displaced some of the greengrocers. But at the same time Korean immigrants have, in a single generation, simply jumped up the economic ladder. According to one study on immigrant assimilation, Koreans are now economically indistinguishable from native-born Americans: "The children of Korean immigrants aren’t manning cash registers late at night; they’re in lines of work that pay more and that their parents see as higher-status."
Meanwhile, the latest rounds of Korean immigrants have moved on from opening groceries to the more lucrative world of spots like nail salons: "like grocery stores, they require little capital to start, but they cater to a more upscale clientele than the groceries do and aren’t expected to stay open around the clock."
And, of course, some Koreans still own groceries, just now many of them have been able to parlay their success into their own grocery chains.
