Blue Dreams

Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots

Nancy Abelmann

John Lie

  • A Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist, Category of Current Interest

Blue Dreams--a poetic allusion to the clear blue sky that Koreans see as a symbol of freedom--is a welcome exploration by outsiders into the vexing and largely invisible Korean-American predicament in Los Angeles and the nation. [Abelmann and Lie 's] colorful interview subjects offer sharp observations.
   --K.W. Lee, Los Angeles Times

An informed and thoughtful examination of Korean immigration to the United States since 1970...[Abelmann and Lie] show that even in a period as short as twenty-five years, there have been successive waves of differently motivated, differently resourced Korean immigrants, and their experiences and reactions have differed accordingly.
   --Michael Tonry, Times Literary Supplement

[The authors'] transnational perspective is particularly effective for explicating Korean immigrants' behaviors, activities, and feelings...Interesting and readable.
   --Pyong Gap Min, American Journal of Sociology

Beginning with a poetic book title, the authors recount in depth as to how the 'Blue Dreams' of the Korean-American merchants in East Los Angeles had shattered in the midst of [the] 1992 riot that turned out to be 'elusive dreams' in America...The book not only portrays the L.A. riot surrounding the Korean merchants, but also characterizes diaspora of the Koreans in America. The authors have also examined with scholarly insights the more complex socioeconomic and political underplay the Koreans encountered in their 'Promised New Land'.
   --Eugene C. Kim, International Migration Review

  • Cover: Blue Dreams

Nancy Abelmann is Henry E. Preble Professor of Anthropology, Asian American Studies, and East Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

John Lie is Class of 1959 Professor and Dean of International and Area Studies at University of California, Berkeley.