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Korean American facts for kids

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Korean Americans
Flag of South Korea.svgFlag of the United States.svg
Total population
1,887,914- 2,492,252
0.6%-0.7% of the U.S. population (2017)
Regions with significant populations
Northern Virginia specifically Fairfax County
Languages
English, Korean
Religion
61% Protestantism
23% Unaffiliated
10% Roman Catholicism
6% Buddhism

Korean Americans are Americans of Korean heritage or descent, mostly from South Korea (99%), and with a very small minority from North Korea, China, Japan, and the Post-Soviet states.

According to the statistics of the Overseas Korean Foundation and the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 107,145 South Korean children were adopted into the United States between 1953 and 2007.

While people living in North Korea cannot—except under rare circumstances—leave their country, there are many people of North Korean origin living in the U.S., a major portion who fled to the south during the Korean War and later emigrated to the United States. Since the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 allowed North Korean defectors to be admitted as refugees, about 130 have settled in the U.S. under that status.

The Korean American community comprises about 0.6% of the United States population, or about 1.8 million people, and is the fifth largest Asian American subgroup. The U.S. is home to the second largest Korean community in the world after the People's Republic of China.

The reasons for immigration are many including the desire for increased freedom and the hope for better economic opportunities.

Korean Americans can speak a combination of English and Korean depending on where they were born and when they immigrated to the United States. New immigrants often use a mixture of Korean and English, a practice also known as code switching.

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