Quo Vadis, Palisades Park? Immigrants' Transformation of a Koreatown

• In Event: 4151 - International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 13: Comparative Migration Studies

Abstract

This ethnographic field research conducted in 2019-2020 in Palisades Park, NJ, explores the changing suburban landscape of New Jersey, or what may be referred to as immigrification (gentrification by immigrants) of an American town. Immigrification may refer to the process of revitalization of a suburban neighborhood by an affluent racial-ethnic immigrant community with a substantial entrepreneurial class, which displaces old timers during the process. Whereas gentrification of a neighborhood implies displacement of minorities by encroaching middle class white residents, the immigrification of Palisades Park is accompanied by a voluntary “displacement” of white old-timers, or “white flight.” Therefore, immigrification results in the development of a middle-class ethnic enclave. Many Koreans residing in the neighborhood are affluent middle-class professionals or business-owners, who invest money in real estate. Therefore, in addition to a variety of small businesses that mushroomed along Broad Ave, duplexes started to replace old houses in the neighborhood. Humungous two-family, two-story buildings usually occupy the whole lot and are about twice as expensive as the old single-family houses. As a result, there are less traditional inexpensive single-family houses in the neighborhoods, shutting out those people who cannot afford exorbitant rents.
The neighborhood also contains much less attractive 3-4 story apartment buildings, which are blatantly labeled by Korean real estate agents as “for poor.” Guatemalans and other newly arrived Central American immigrants usually live in extended families, sharing these flats with a family or two. The working-class apartment buildings are sandwiched between the duplexes and project cleanliness, good maintenance, and management of the property. Consequently, two major immigrant communities in a small American town are actively engaged in gentrification of their neighborhood. While Koreans are the driving force of the process, Guatemalan immigrants provide the needed labor force and maintenance.

Author

• Halyna Lemekh, Saint Francis College