Korean Americans (Korean: 한국계 미국인, Hanja: 韓國系美國人, Hangukgye Migukin) are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea. The Korean American community comprises about 0.6% of the United States population, or about 1.7 million people, and is the fifth largest Asian American subgroup, after the Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, and Vietnamese American communities. The U.S. is home to the second largest Korean diaspora community in the world after the People's Republic of China.

While people living in North Korea cannot leave or emigrate from their country with rare exceptions, there are numbers of people of North Korean origin living in the U.S., primarily those who fled to the south during the Korean War and then later migrated to the United States. Also, 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.

According to the 2010 Census, there were approximately 1.7 million people of Korean descent residing in the United States, making it the country with the second largest Korean population living outside Korea (after the People's Republic of China). The ten states with the largest estimated Korean American populations were California (452,000; 1.2%), New York (141,000, 0.7%), New Jersey (94,000, 1.1%), Virginia (71,000, 0.9%), Texas (68,000, 0.3%), Washington (62,400, 0.9%), Illinois (61,500, 0.5%), Georgia (52,500, 0.5%), Maryland (49,000, 0.8%), and Pennsylvania (41,000, 0.3%). Hawaii was the state with the highest concentration of Korean Americans, at 1.8%, or 23,200 people.

Heejun Han (born Han Hee-Jun; Hangul: 한희준; April 20, 1989) is an American singer from Flushing, Queens, New York, who finished in ninth place on the eleventh season of American Idol.

Han was born on April 20, 1989, to Jae Chun and Sun Ae Han of Anyang, Gyeonggi, South Korea. He and his family migrated to Flushing, New York, when he was 12 years old. He attended Francis Lewis High School. He also played football at College Park High School's varsity squad in 2007-2008, in Walnut Creek, California.^{[citation needed]}

Before he auditioned for American Idol, he was a non-profit organizer from Milal Mission in New York, a faith-based non-profit in Flushing, working with children with special needs. He has spoken of suffering from emotional depression and credited the children that he worked with for helping him to recover from his illness. He has also said that the children motivated him to audition for American Idol.^{[citation needed]}

Han auditioned for the eleventh season of American Idol in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a performance of Michael Bolton's version of the song, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You". His audition brought Jennifer Lopez to tears, and Steven Tyler stated "I think you are really great. I think you could be an American Idol". He received a golden ticket and advanced to Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Chil Kong is a Korean American actor and director. He is a graduate of Virginia Tech with degrees in Marketing and Psychology. While at Virginia Tech, he performed with The New Virginians, a touring musical performance group. He also attended the master of fine arts program at Boston Conservatory and is a member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab West. He has also served as Adjunct Professor of Theatre at San Diego State University. He has held Artistic Director positions at several Asian-focused theater companies including Asia On Stage in Boston, The Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle and Lodestone Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles.

Lodestone Theatre Ensemble was the second largest Asian American theater company in Los Angeles, with Co-Artistic Directors Chil Kong and Philip C. Chung serving for the entire ten-year run. The company began as a response to the Los Angeles riots to serve the stories of Asian Americans of a younger generation.

Over their ten-year run, Kong and Chung were hailed^{[by whom?]} as ground-breaking innovators and gave stage time to actors such as Daniel Dae Kim, Dennis Dun, Roger Fan, Camille Mana, Eddie Shin, James Kyson Lee, Erin Quill and Blythe Matsui. At their ten-year benefit, guests who took the stage to honor them included the Host, Alec Mapa, Sandra Oh, Newsman David Ono, Kelly Hu, John Cho, The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, and many more

Jim Yong Kim, also known as Kim Yong (Hangul: 김용; Hanja: 金墉; born December 8, 1959) is a Korean-American physician and the president-elect of the World Bank. He has been President of Dartmouth College since 2009. He was formerly the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a co-founder and executive director of Partners In Health.

On March 2, 2009, Kim was named as the 17th president of Dartmouth College, a position he formally assumed on July 1, 2009, becoming the first Asian-American president of an Ivy League institution.

On March 23, 2012, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would nominate Kim as the next president of the World Bank. On April 16, Kim was elected to head the World Bank and will take office on July 1.

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. His father taught dentistry at the University of Iowa, while his mother received her PhD in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School, where he was valedictorian, president of his class, and played both quarterback for the football team and point guard on the basketball team. After a year and a half at the University of Iowa, he transferred to Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in 1982. He was awarded an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1991, and a PhD from Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, in 1993. He was among the first enrollees of Harvard's experimental MD/PhD program in the social sciences.