The emergence of Montreal's unofficial Koreatown

Sunday afternoon on Sherbrooke Street West is a time and place that resonates profoundly with Korean Montrealers. The borough of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) is home to many cultural groups, but it’s been the first home for many of the city’s Korean immigrants. Affordable housing in a predominantly anglophone neighbourhood was a good fit for Koreans, and many families have since branched out and moved into the rest of the city with NDG as their gateway.

The first wave of Korean immigration to Montreal is unclear. Many speculate it was in the late 50s and 60s, but the majority of Koreans certainly arrived in Quebec in the late 1980s. At 1,000 people, the community was small, but steadily grew.