[6][17] The Korean population remained roughly stable at 22,354 people in 2011; among these, 7,420 were Argentine nationals, 14,340 had permanent residency, four were international students, and 590 had other types of visas.

[5] Many of the Korean immigrants who arrived in the 1980s possessed professional qualifications in fields as diverse as pharmacy, accounting, and history; however, due to the language barrier, and also the desire to get the maximum return from the capital they had invested in Argentina, they went into small businesses in which all members of the family could contribute their labour.

[19] Korean business owners took advantage of intra-ethnic networks both to find additional labourers, and also to gain access to further capital, in the form of rotating credit associations.

[20] In the 1990s, members of the locally educated 1.5 and second generations moved away from small business and again branched out into the professions which their parents had abandoned, typically medicine, fashion design, and architecture.

[21] Argentines initially perceived Koreans as hard-working, intelligent, and honest, but their image took a turn for the worse in the 1980s, precisely as more began arriving in the country—instead, they came to be viewed as exploiters and opportunists.

[18] Koreans' entry into the textile industry provided ample fuel for ethnic friction as they outcompeted their co-industrialists through hard work, consisting of twelve- to fourteen-hour days, and use of cheap labour, limited not just to family members but, in some publicized cases, illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bolivia as well.

Xenophobic news reports falsely accused them of stealing electricity from power companies, thus cementing in the public mind the idea that the Korean immigrants thrived at the expense of the rest of Argentina.

Since Argentina has a rigid class stratification system and their popular national identity is based on an exclusive European racial representation, Koreans inevitably stirred resentment towards their presence.

[22] Children of Korean immigrants also had a difficult time getting accepted as Argentines due to their parents' poor command of the Spanish language, different food, and different customs such as taking off ones' shoes at the front door of the house.

The Korean Cultural Center in Buenos Aires sponsors the largest K-pop festival in Argentina and it attracts thousands of participants every year.

[29] Argentine asado (grilled meat) is popular among Koreans just as among other communities, but they typically eat it with kimchi as a side dish rather than the more common salads or French fries.

The institution, located at 2945 Felipe Vallese St. in the Floresta District, was created on the initiative of Kim Yun Shin, a South Korean painter who graduated from Seoul's Hongik University and has resided in Buenos Aires since 1984.