Title: The Effects of Immigrant Entrepreneurship on Ethnic Attachment and Ethnic Solidarity: Koreans, the Chinese, Indians in New York
This study intends to systematically examine the effects of immigrant entrepreneurship on both "ethnic attachment" (as the cultural, social and psychological integration into the ethnic community) and "ethnic solidarity" (as use of ethnic collective action) for Chinese, Indian and Korean immigrants in New York. The two hypotheses that determine the major direction of inquiry are that (1) immigrant entrepreneurship strengthens ethnic attachment for all three Asian groups; (2) but that, mainly because of the differences in business patterns, combined with the differential levels of population diversity, among the three groups, immigrant entrepreneurship is likely to enhance Korean immigrants' ethnic solidarity whereas it may rather weaken Chinese and Indian immigrants' ethnic solidarity. A telephone survey involving about 300 Korean, 300 Chinese, and 300 Indian immigrants in New York City will be used to examine the effects on ethnic attachment, whereas a review of The New York Times articles and tape-recorded personal interviews with about 40 Chinese, 40 Indian and 20 Korean community, business, professional, and labor organization leaders in the New York-New Jersey area will be used to examine the effects on ethnic solidarity. This study will make a significant contribution to sociological knowledge by showing the effects of immigrant business patterns on two separate ethnic phenomena. The traditional sociological approach has focused on examining the effects of ethnic ties on immigrant entrepreneurship, neglecting to examine the effects in the opposite direction. The broader impacts of this project will include providing practically useful information about business patterns among the three Asian immigrant groups and training 16 Chinese, Indian, and Korean undergraduate and graduate students for sociological research on their own communities.
