Talking about how the American labor market channeled various groups of post-1965 immigrants risks repeating tired ethnic stereotypes that still plague the country’s psyche. But not talking about it risks naturalizing the same patterns, reinforcing false ideas about ethnic suitability for certain jobs and the role of Asian immigrants in general in America. Only by putting this sequence in its global economic-historical context can we understand, for example, the relationship between Korean immigrants and urban corner stores. A disproportionate number of post-1965 Asian immigrants gravitated toward small-business ownership for a whole slew of reasons: If they bought one, immigration rules permitted individuals to enter the country regardless of their point-system scores; small businesses allowed families to informally employ their own members at low wages, lending the enterprises a competitive advantage; as their own bosses, immigrants didn’t exaggerate the necessity of English language skills, as an anglophone employer might; members of a generation of white ethnic small-business owners were nearing the ends of their lives after having successfully assimilated their children into professional jobs and felt compelled to sell their shops; educated professionals who couldn’t traverse the American credentials system had access to modest loans and pooled capital from their community networks; suburban expansion in the South and West created demand for small concerns to fill out the new strip malls. Low-capital, labor-intensive businesses such as restaurants, doughnut bakeries, small groceries, auto-repair garages, newsstands, motels, nail salons, liquor shops, and convenience stores were viable enough, but small profit margins meant that self- and family exploitation was the only way to make any money. Ronald Takaki calls it an “opportune moment” to become a shopkeeper, and yet he also notes that a “study of Korean business owners showed that more than 90 percent of them worked harder and lived more frugally here than they had in Korea.”39 It’s this decline in living standards that Reagan admired when he hailed Asians and Pacific Islanders as model minorities: All workers should work so hard and live so frugally! The president sounded a lot like his forerunner in Sacramento, Leland Stanford, at least when the robber baron was feeling charitable toward his laborers.