NYT "Andy Kim's election draws attention to Korean community in New Jersey"

U.S. Representative Andy Kim is the first Korean-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate, drawing attention to the Korean-American concentration in New Jersey.

The New York Times highlighted the Korean community in Bergen County, northern New Jersey, which is adjacent to New York, saying, "Rep. Kim's election took place more than 100 years after the first Korean immigrants arrived in the United States."

He also introduced California and New York as the largest concentration of Korean-Americans in the United States, but evaluated that "there is no place in the United States where the traces of Korean-Americans are more pronounced than in northern New Jersey."

The first generation of Korean immigrants to New York settled mainly in the Queens area of New York City, but some moved to Bergen County, New Jersey, to form a Korean community in search of a better educational and residential environment.

Kim, a U.S. Democrat who served as a three-term congressman in New Jersey at a young age, was elected to the Senate representing New Jersey, beating Republican candidate Curtis Basho with 53.5 percent of the vote.

In Palisades Park City, the center of the Korean community in New Jersey, 52% of the 20,000 population is Korean, accounting for the highest proportion of the Korean population in the United States.

In some areas of Bergen County, where the proportion of Koreans is high, such as Palisades Park and Portree, it is easy to see Korean signs in hospitals and shops on the streets, and daily life is possible to some extent just by writing Korean.

In the case of Palisades Park, Korean-American Mayor Paul Kim is leading the city administration, and five out of six members of the city council are Korean-Americans.Mayor of

Pol Kim said that Andy Kim's election reflected the natural maturation of the Korean immigration community, adding, "It really broke the glass ceiling."

However, the New York Times evaluated that as Representative Andy Kim was not overwhelmingly supported by the Korean community in this election, it reveals the complexity of the Korean community, where the Republican Party is gaining power.

In fact, in Palisades Park City, which has a majority of the Korean population, Kim's vote in the federal Senate election was about 59%, slightly higher than New Jersey's overall average of 53.5%.