The history of Orange County’s Korean-American community will be the subject of guest speaker Ellen Ahn of the Korean American Center and Korean Community Services at the next meeting of the Orange County Historical Society on, February 12, 2026, 7:30 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in Orange. The public is welcome!!
photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library
Ahn will trace the Korean-American community from the early 20th-century labor migration to Hawai‘i, through the transformative impact of the 1965 Immigration Act, and into the establishment of Southern California as a primary gateway for Korean immigrants, with O.C. becoming a destination. She’ll tell how the 1992 L.A. riots accelerated suburban migration and reshaped Orange County into a center of Korean-American life with strong institutions, businesses, and more. In the following decades, O.C. developed into a mature, multi generational Korean-American hub characterized by professional leadership, political engagement, and ties to South Korea. Today, O.C. is one of the largest Korean-American population centers in the U.S., marked by high education, strong entrepreneurship, significant Limited English Proficiency needs among seniors, and growing second- and third-generation communities.
photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library
A Fullerton resident for over 20 years, Ellen Ahn is the longtime Executive Director of Korean Community Services (KCS), which provides free health, educational, immigration, legal and social service programs to some 10,000 low-income people in Orange County annually.
Ahn grew up in Echo Park’s Koreatown, the child of immigrants. Her father, an Episcopal priest, led a small Korean congregation which started KCS in 1977. Ahn attended both Yale and Georgetown University law school, and later joined the board of KCS. She went back for a master’s in social work from USC to better guide the Buena Park-based nonprofit.
The Korean American Center was founded in 2015 in Irvine, to reclaim what was lost to assimilation: Korean language, culture, and history. In 2018, the Center merged with KCS and was designated a King Sejong Institute – a global network supported by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to promote Korean language and culture worldwide.
photo courtesy of Chris Jepsen
photo courtesy of Chris Jepsen
We look forward to learning about the history of Orange County’s Korean-American community from Ellen Ahn of the Korean American Center and Korean Community Services at the next meeting of the Orange County Historical Society on, February 12, 2026, 7:30 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in Orange. The public is welcome!!