Pyong Gap Min
Professor

Office: Powdermaker Hall 233H Phone: 718 997-2810 Fax: 718 997-2820 Email: pyonggap.min@qc.cuny.edu

Pyong Gap Min is Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has taught courses on race and ethnic relations, immigration, ethnic identity, marriage and the family, new immigrants and their religions, and Asian Americans. The areas of his research focus are immigrant entrepreneurship, ethnic identity, changes in the family and women's gender role, and immigrants' religions, with a special focus on Asian Americans. Methodologically, Min usually combines quantitative data (survey results and public documents), qualitative data (in-depth personal interviews and participant observations), and newspaper articles. Most of his books and journal articles are based on the above-mentioned multiple data sources. Although he has conducted more than 15 surveys of Korean and other Asian immigrants and their children, he has published only a few articles that are based on survey data or public documents alone. He does not believe a work based on quantitative data alone (especially quantitative data involving multivariate analyses) without voices of members of an immigrant or ethnic group and/or the investigator’s insider’s knowledge can capture the reality of the group under consideration. But he also tends to underestimate the value of works based on qualitative data alone whose findings cannot be generalized to the group. Min is the author of Ethnic Business Enterprise: Korean Small Business in Atlanta (Center for Migration Studies, 1988), Caught in the Middle: Korean Communities in New York and Los Angeles (University of California Press, 1996), and Changes and Conflicts: Korean Immigrant Families in New York (Allyn and Bacon, 1998). Caught in the Middle was selected as the winner of the 1997 National Book Award in the Social Science by the Association for Asian American Studies and a co-winner of the 1998 Outstanding Book Award by the Asia and Asian America Section of the American Sociological Association. The fifth printing of Changes and Conflicts was published in 2002. His most recent book is Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Greengrocers in New York City (Russell Sage Foundation, 2008). His new book, Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnicity through Religion: Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus, will be published in 2009 by New York University Press. Min is the editor of Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues (Sage Publications, 1995), The Second Generation: Ethnic Identity among Asian Americans (Altamira Press, 2002), Mass Migration to the United States: Classical and Contemporary Periods (Altamira Press, 2002), and Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States, 3 volumes (Greenwood Press, 2005). The second edition of his edited book, Asian Americans, was also published in 2006 (Pine Forge Press). He is the co-editor of Struggle for Ethnic Identity: Narratives by Asian American Professionals (Altamira Press, 1999), and Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communities (Altamira Press, 2002). Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States was selected as one of the 23 best books published in the reference category in 2005 by the Booklist. .