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[LA Times] The fight to keep Korean businesses in L.A.

September 2, 2015

 

Los Angeles' jobber market located in the downtown fashion district (Korea Times file)

Los Angeles’ jobber market located in the downtown fashion district (Korea Times file)

[LOS ANGELES TIMES]

When Daejae Kim arrived in Los Angeles three decades ago, he took his first step into the apparel business in downtown’s fashion district, where a budding Korean entrepreneurial community was beginning to take hold.

His wife got a job as a store clerk. He peddled textiles. Eventually, they built their own wholesale and manufacturing business selling trendy women’s clothing.

Today, Korean businesses represent at least a third — and possibly half — of the businesses in the garment district, generating at least $10 billion in annual revenues and providing 20,000 jobs, according to the Korean American Apparel Manufacturers Assn.

And now Kim and other Korean American clothing makers are eyeing a new frontier.

Squeezed, they say, by Los Angeles’ rising minimum wage, stricter labor enforcement and ebbing Latin American clientele following a federal raid against alleged money laundering operations last year, Kim and other Korean business owners are flirting with the idea of relocating to El Paso.

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