As a member of the South Korean diaspora myself, my observation is that the mother tongue is lost pretty quickly amongst the immigrant populations. Quite a few

As a member of the South Korean diaspora myself, my observation is that the mother tongue is lost pretty quickly amongst the immigrant populations. Quite a few of my fellow Asian-American friends who are 1.5 or 2nd generation speak the language of their native countries only haltingly, or barely. Our generation’s kids who are now mostly toddlers or elementary school are faring worse. Many of them are growing up with minimal to zero knowledge of the mother tongue. I imagine the end state will be similar to other immigrant groups. I.e. n-th generation Italian-Americans or German-Americans that know zero Italian or German. Paraphrasing a fellow Korean-American friend, eventually we’ll become “just Americans that look Korean”. Although if you look at what native Korean-Koreans look like today versus Korean-Americans, even looks are diverging - even disregarding the whole subject of plastic surgery. I myself would be in that situation (knowing little to no Korean) if it weren’t for having first been hired by a Korean company, then joining a Korean language church, and lastly, marrying a primarily Korean speaking wife.