Los que llegaron - Coreanos (22/02/2012)

The first Korean immigrants arrived in Mexico in 1905. They were a group of 802 men and 231 women and children who set sail from the port of Chemulpo on the ship Ilford. Their final destination was the henequen plantations of the Yucatán Peninsula. Upon their arrival, the Korean workers were practically enslaved, although after the outbreak of the Revolution and the discovery of new fibers, especially synthetic ones, henequen cultivation collapsed and the plantations were abandoned. A new wave of Korean immigration arrived in the country in the mid-1990s, settling in Mexico City, Yucatán, Baja California, the State of Mexico, Tlaxcala, and Puebla. Over the past ten years, many Korean executives have arrived in Mexico to work in the more than 1,700 Korean-owned companies located primarily in Tijuana and Mexicali. Currently, it is estimated that around 15,000 Koreans live in Mexico, making Mexico the third country in terms of the number of Korean immigrants, after Brazil and Argentina.