Koreatown, NYC

""Jinwon Kim draws a deeply researched - and deeply felt - portrait of Manhattan's famous restaurant and nightlife hotspot Koreatown, placing it at the symbolic intersection of global ambitions and local identities. This 'transclave,' as Kim ingeniously calls it, both depends on and transcends contemporary Korean views of Korean culture, opening the door to intraethnic struggles as well as interethnic understanding."" - Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places ""Kim brings a rich and insightful lens to the modern evolution of Manhattan's Koreatown, exploring how cultural globalization, nation-branding, and immigrant entrepreneurship forged this unique enclave. The book weaves together top-down analyses of Korean and New York branding strategies with on-the-ground perspectives from small businesses and K-wave consumers, revealing how they came together to shape K-Town's rise. This work promises to be an influential resource for scholars and readers interested in cultural sociology, Asian American studies, immigration, urbanism, and the making of contemporary global cityscapes."" – Angie Y. Chung, author of Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth ""Through inventive theorizing and rich ethnography, Kim explains the growing buzz around NYC's Koreatown as a 24/7 urban destination for Korean transnationals, immigrants and non-Korean cultural omnivores. It's a persuasive analysis of the ingenuity and opportunism of the Korean state, corporations and food entrepreneurs to nation brand their cuisine and K-pop culture in NYC and around the world. Through illuminating interviews with Korean insider and outsider consumers, Kim reveals diverging views about cultural authenticity, symbolic ownership, and collective memory amidst the flux of metropolitan reinvention."" – Jan Lin, author of Taking Back the Boulevard: Art, Activism and Gentrification in Los Angeles ""Koreatown, NYC offers a compelling analysis of how a single block in Midtown becomes a global cultural marketplace. Based on extensive fieldwork, the book situates this space within transpacific circuits of capital and cultural diplomacy. Conceptually rigorous and empirically rich, Kim sheds light on the commodification of ethnicity and the politics of national branding in one of the most important urban geographies in the world. This book is a landmark study for scholars of globalization and urban cultural economies."" – Edward J.W. Park, co-author of Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immigration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities