Koreans and Bangladeshis Vie in L.A.

The Los Angeles neighborhood known as Koreatown has the largest concentration of Koreans in the country (Difficult to believe it has more than Flushing)







In the last 30 years or so, a six-square-mile area west of downtown Los Angeles has become an enclave of some 50,000 Korean-Americans, the largest concentration of Koreans in the country. The district is now commonly known as Koreatown.

A 2000 study shows the Korean population of NYC: 2000 Alone or In-Combination Population in New York City 90,896 and Queens (as a Percentage of NYC Population) 63,906 (70%). Most of that number must be Flushing, and that was in 2000.

The last official count of the Bangladeshi population, in the 2000 census, showed only 1,700 in all of Los Angeles County. But the Bangladeshi consul general here, Abu Zafar, estimates that there are now 10,000 to 15,000 in Los Angeles and some 25,000 in Southern California, making the region the nation’s second-largest home to Bangladeshis, after New York City.

“This cross-ethnic tension is somewhat new,” said Jan Lin, a sociology professor at Occidental College here whose specialty is ethnic enclaves. “Historically, it’s been whites against nonwhites as new immigrants move into established white neighborhoods.”

But the tension is not surprising, Mr. Lin said, given the tendency of immigrant groups to live in close proximity to one another. In Hollywood, Thai Town is inside Little Armenia. Little Tokyo and Chinatown occupy distinct but neighboring spaces downtown. And a Salvadoran business corridor lies adjacent to Koreatown.

Same as in Queens.

“It’s nice to embrace other communities,” said Brad Lee, a member of the Koreatown neighborhood council’s board, “as long as it’s not in our backyard. Or in our front yard.”

Some 'Other' Wall Streets Embarrassed

"This is the real Wall Street,' says Mark Rosenstein, chef/proprietor of the Market Place restaurant on Wall Street (the one in Asheville, N.C.).



"If I ran this restaurant like the bankers ran their business, I would no longer have a job," says Celinda Knight, manager of the Wall Street Bar & Grill, on East Wall Street in Midland, Texas, childhood home of former President George W. Bush.

That is probably what infuriates people more than anything else: the double standard. That they get bailed out with our money is also infuriating.

Anger over runaway trading, financial engineering and compensation by financial companies has a strong resonance along at least 955 country roads, suburban streets and downtown blocks named Wall Street or something close to that. From Abilene, Texas, to south Los Angeles to Zeeland, Mich., these residents and business are wrestling both with the recession and the ignominy of a truly fallen address. (Never mind that most Wall Street financial firms aren't literally located on Wall Street, nor is The Wall Street Journal.)

"My father's always joked: 'My daughter works on Wall Street,'" says Robin Campbell, owner of Dolce Vita, an eclectic boutique halfway on Asheville's Wall Street that is stocked with handbags, earrings and wine. "Now he doesn't joke about that."

On Wall Streets throughout the country, the dominant view is that their New York cousins deserve their ruined reputation.

There is such a disconnect between normal people and financiers. Politicians straddle the two worlds, getting money from the latter, votes from the former.
As much as people on "other" Wall Streets want to distance themselves from the one known around the world, they can't escape its economic reach. In January, Asheville's unemployment rate hit 8.7%, up from 4.4% a year earlier. Tourism, the area's most important business, is slowing. Once-red-hot mountain real-estate developments are dormant.

'This Was a Warning'

An earthquake struck near Los Angeles yesterday. This video is funny, but only because no damage resulted.

[http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1620628564/bclid1699105550/bctid1699238481]