Word: koreas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Multinational corporations help to mobilize female migration outside the U.S. by hiring young women, who leave the countryside to find work in their nation's cities and in special export-processing zones. On the assembly lines of export plants in such countries as South Korea, Haiti, Mexico and Taiwan, they learn to put together computer chips, sew flannel pajamas and cover baseballs. Moved irretrievably beyond the old ways by their experience, they tend to migrate to the same kind of factories or to other jobs in the U.S. In a way, assembly plants just south of the Mexican border...
...other all but universally shared experience is finding a job. That can be a profoundly humbling experience, especially for highly educated Asians. Degrees and credentials that took years to attain suddenly count for little or nothing. Jei Hak Suh, 43, gave up a banking career in South Korea to move with his wife and two young children to Los Angeles in 1981; with his English far from polished, he realized that the banking jobs available to him would not pay enough to support his family. He is now a construction worker...
Sang Kook Nam, 37, and his wife Seon Kyung, 35, respectively a mechanical engineer and a nurse, arrived from South Korea in 1974 to live with Nam's brother in Michigan. Nam pumped gas for the first year, saving enough to open his own filling station, then a body shop, then a used-car dealership. His wife, meanwhile, started a jewelry store. In 1979 the Nams sold their businesses and set out for Los Angeles, where Nam attended dry-cleaning school and within six months made a $20,000 down payment on a store. That has since expanded...
...parents are letting go of some of their ways," insists Joo Hee Yoo, 13, who came to Los Angeles from South Korea ten years ago. "They are beginning to understand that America is a place of freedom." Maybe so, but the rules for Joo, who now goes by the name Jennifer, and her two younger sisters would strike many U.S. youngsters as unduly restrictive. No telephone calls to or from boys. No curling irons or pierced ears until age 15. No hair spray and makeup until after high school. "When you are a student, you should look like a student...
...assist the U.S. in reversing the tide. President Ferdinand Marcos has cited the annual exodus of 35,000 Filipinos to the U.S. as a help in offsetting two of his country's most obstinate problems: unemployment (now running at 45%) and a lopsided balance of payments. In South Korea, the departure of workers has eased some of the strains triggered by a population boom; in overcrowded Hong Kong (pop. 5.5 million), departing workers have reduced competition for professional jobs...