https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean#Puerto_Rico

the entire wiki entry is decent enough and there is a lot of literature on the cryptojews. where i'm from is a place that is mainly jewish in origin. the jews ended up morphing into the mountain people at least in puerto rico and are essentially indistinguishable from the spaniards in the main.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674299)

i cannot confirm this account.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674785)

The old man next door was named Schlomo ljl

was weird seeing hook nosed Jews speaking portuguese

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674422)

"Actually, I learned something very important when I was maybe 23 – I met an Israeli guy named Yahuda ben Yahuda. After talking with him for a while, he said, "You know, Mr. Casey" – he was very kind to address the young punk I was as Mr. Casey – "if you go to the Gold Coast, and you stay there for five years, you'll have five percent of everything going in or out of the country." I've always remembered that, because he was right. It's what he did when he came to America."

https://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/doug-casey-fresh-starts

Casey says that the best thing you can do is not to go try to compete in NYC or SF. rather, he says, move to a place where you have a big advantage over the native population. go to a place where you can dominate.

if you and your crew arrive in brazil and you're four standard deviations above the average person in the country in skill and intelligence. then how many people in that country can compete with you? you're going to get rich even if the country is a shithole. the japanese and jews who went to brazil got rich. the indians who went to uganda got rich. the jews in poland got rich. the chinese who went to jamaica got rich. the whites who went to south africa got rich. the country as a whole may suck, but if you're at the tippy top, you still get rich.

it seems to me that the important thing is not so much where you are, or whether it's a great place, but whether or not you can dominate compared to the people around you.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674415)

also, this is generally correct and accounts for those random people you find scattered all around the world doing big things who are not native.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674771)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674773)

the spanish and middle eastern jews weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but it sufficed for them to be 6-10 points higher in IQ than their neighbors. and the japanese who left to go farm in brazil weren't the greatest specimens from japan. but they were big fish in a small pond.

so it leads us to the very counterintuitive advice. although it's tempting, you shouldn't try to go somewhere where you are average or below average. it's actually better to go somewhere shitty and dominate.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674820)

http://imgur.com/9qVfKCt

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674843)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674884)

no fucking thank you.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674822)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674833)

let's say you're a native korean with a 110 IQ. you're not going to be able to out-strive people in korea. but if you go to the ghetto in california, you can dominate, stack some major cash, and then move on. either go back home to korea or move out the hood.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674841)

It's much better to be a poor Mexican, hop the fence, have kids, and then let American taxpayers support them via taxes (welfare, food stamps). Then get a job where you're paid cash and don't have to pay taxes. Then have government subsidize your housing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674851)

btw, i got a fucking 148 GRE quant and probably am quite low IQ and i am ballin the fuck out in korea

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674862)

sure, i speak english, but a million other koreans also speak english.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674878)

my point is that nothing about me speaking english gives me a real advantage in the hiring process bc so many people here already speak english well

im ballin because i hustled my ass off and made moves

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674924)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674937)

so if you were in the 94th percentile on a grad school verbal test, then considering the college educated testing pool, your verbal IQ is likely in the 99th percentile for a northeast asian. do you realize that?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32675004)

https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/business/la-me-korean-jobber-market-20150902-story,amp.html?client=safari

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674875)

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.

On Wednesday, a broker from the Texas border town is scheduled to slip into L.A. to describe factory space and talk price per square foot with the business owners. And later this month the trade association, which represents 1,800 Korean American manufacturers and distributors, will send a group to scout El Paso.

The proposal is in its preliminary stages, with only a few dozen companies so far expressing a serious interest in moving, says Kim, a key advocate of decampment.

Still, the news is rattling nerves across the ecosystem of Korean realtors, banks and restaurants that developed alongside Los Angeles' downtown apparel industry — known among Koreans as the "jobber market."

A spokeswoman for mayor Eric Garcetti says that hearing the industry's concerns has prompted the mayor's office to recommend that the City Council increase a small-business tax exemption, and the office is working to streamline the process for obtaining health and safety permits.

"The two highest industry concentrations in the city and county of Los Angeles are apparel manufacturing and motion pictures," says William C. Allen, president of the Economic Development Corporation. "We don't like to lose any jobs to anyone — but when you hear of a specific opportunity [offered by] a specific city, that makes the problem more real and more acute."

Even some South Korean academics who study the Korean diaspora are concerned about the potential effect of the Texas relocation plan, says UCLA anthropologist Kyeyoung Park. The garment trade has, since the 1970s, been "the most important sector of the Korean American economy," she says.

Los Angeles' garment district businesses were predominantly Jewish in the 1970s when Korean immigrants first began selling textiles there. Many had first emigrated from Korea to Latin America, where they operated successful fashion businesses, before migrating north to California.

As Koreans began to branch into small-scale wholesaling, they were often referred to as jobbers, giving rise to the colloquial name jobber market (or "jaba" in Korean slang).

Soon entrepreneurs were hiring their own designers and seamstresses, and the fortunes created downtown helped shape nearby Koreatown, as several of the most successful businessmen invested in real estate there. An oft-repeated refrain is that, "It's the jobber market that feeds Koreatown."

The Korean American-owned fashion behemoth Forever 21 got most of its merchandise from the jobber market in its early days, and invested in real estate a couple of blocks from Kim's downtown store Tres Bien. Today, the neighborhood still bustles with entrepreneurial energy.

On a recent afternoon, scantily-clad mannequins with bare midriffs bask in the sun outside shops. Delivery vans and food trucks double-park as workers push dollies piled high with boxes along the sidewalk.

Overall, however, the Southland's garment industry has been on the wane, as manufacturing moved to China, Southeast Asia or other places with cheap labor and other ways to cut costs. Apparel manufacturing, responsible for more than 104,000 jobs two decades ago, had fallen to about 62,100 jobs by 2005. Since then it has continued to shrink to 45,600 jobs, according to the California Employment Development Department.

For some business owners, including Kim, a hard nudge came last year when swarms of heavily armed immigration and IRS agents swarmed the garment district, knocking down doors, seizing piles of cash and alarming legitimate businessmen and customers alike. Authorities arrested nine suspects and seized $90 million in cash from businesses allegedly involved in laundering drug cartel proceeds.

Agents shattered the glass front door of the business next to Kim's and barged in with guns drawn.

Kim says that the way the law enforcement agents treated even the innocent as criminal suspects, and the government's failure to work with the business community in advance of the raid drove home for him how little political clout the Korean American apparel industry has mustered in its decades in Los Angeles.

"That's how little they thought of us," he says.

Ever since word of the planned move hit Koreatown papers in July, Kim says, he has been receiving calls daily from other Koreans in the market who are interested in relocating. He'd already started giving presentations on El Paso to fellow Korean businessmen when the city and county passed minimum wage hikes this summer, adding fuel to interest in the proposal. Among the intrigued are a high-end demin manufacturer and a maker of printed woven dresses.

Now, taped to a wall by his desk, just beneath a painting of Jesus, is a tattered tourist map of El Paso. Kim says he looks at it daily.

In his pitch, Kim makes the case that El Paso, once home to plants for denim companies including Levi's and Wrangler, has abundant skilled laborers, fewer regulations, much cheaper rent and direct flights from Los Angeles. With more wholesale orders being made online or at trade shows, rather than through buyers prowling the garment district, there's less of an imperative to be in Los Angeles, Kim says.

Alexandra Suh, executive director of the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, says some downtown garment factories had been flouting existing labor laws and warns that some employers may be looking to El Paso to take advantage of laxer enforcement and a vulnerable new immigrant population.

"We have members who were paid $150 a week for 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week," Suh says. "We don't want those kinds of jobs in our city, we don't want those kinds of employers in our city."

On their scouting trip, the trade association's representatives are planning to meet El Paso officials and view potential factory sites.

Richard Cho, president of the association, is quick to point out that there's little risk that Los Angeles' garment district will abruptly empty as business owners stampede en masse to Texas.

"It's a giant international market, it's not going to evacuate overnight," he says.

He adds, however, that the antsiness Kim and his cohort are showing cannot be taken lightly. "These aren't people who have been here just a couple years. How bad do you think things have gotten, that they're looking into moving?"

For his part, Kim is unequivocal. "Among ourselves, we're referring to it as an exodus," he says. "We're not thinking of going. We're going."

He does have one key qualm, however.

El Paso's few Korean restaurants are dismal, Kim says. He was particularly appalled by a kimchi stew he had there. It's customary to find cuts of pork neck or leg steeping in the bright red broth. Instead he found hunks of bacon.

Some entrepreneurial restaurateur, Kim says, will have to change that.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674887)

an absolute travesty.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674918)

It's a TTT in decline b/c of China, and that FBI raid on these stores (who actually have a fuckton of cash) really fucked them. Some of them knowingly and unknowingly helped money laundering for the cartels.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32675029)

"let's say you're a native korean with a 110 IQ. you're not going to be able to out-strive people in korea."

you said:

"btw, i got a fucking 148 GRE quant and probably am quite low IQ and i am ballin the fuck out in korea"

so just so i have this right, are you saying that you out-strove natives in korea? or are you saying that you've had a good life outcome? because striving has a very specific meaning. striving means grinding and going to the most elite institutions in korea.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674971)

but i learned what i needed to learn and fought my way to the top of the food chain (and yes, i copped dat SNU degree)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674989)

For most of the top UMC white collar jobs you can break into it "easier"- like objectively it's much harder to get into SKY than most of T30 UG had these people stayed in KOrea.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32675027)

i mean it's not like I can wipe them out and take their shit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32674883)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese#Country_statistics

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3533129&forum_id=2#32675056)