Drive Pacific Highway South through Federal Way, Washington, on a Saturday morning and the storefronts read like a street in Seoul rendered in Pacific Northwest cedar and rain. The Koreans in Federal Way built something here over fifty years, between Seattle and Tacoma, that began with a handful of military brides and grew into one of the largest Korean communities in the Pacific Northwest. Hangul signage glows over barbecue houses, tofu restaurants, churches, and a sprawling H Mart, all clustered along a few miles of highway that locals long ago started calling Korea Town.
The Place
Federal Way sits in the southwest corner of King County, tucked between Seattle and Tacoma along Interstate 5. It takes its odd name from a 1929 school district consolidation tied to the federally designated U.S. Route 99, the highway that still runs through its heart as Pacific Highway South.
For most of the twentieth century it was logging country, then suburban sprawl: home to the Weyerhaeuser timber headquarters and, from 1977, the Wild Waves amusement park. The city only incorporated on 28 February 1990, making it one of the youngest cities in the county. By the 2020 census it counted just over 101,000 residents, the tenth largest city in Washington, with roughly 15.5 percent identifying as Asian.
How It Became Korean
The story of Korean Federal Way starts not with the city at all, but with the army bases to the south. Joint Base Lewis-McChord, then Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, drew thousands of American servicemen home from postings in South Korea, and many brought Korean wives with them.
The military brides
In the 1950s and 1960s these women arrived in the Tacoma area largely alone, far from family, often the only Korean speaker for miles. The need to find one another was urgent and practical. In 1972 a Korean wife of an American serviceman named Kim Nam Hui gathered other women on base to share meals and language, and from that social club grew the Korean Women’s Association, today a Tacoma-based human services nonprofit serving 150,000 people a year across western Washington.
That first generation seeded the region. Where military wives settled, relatives followed, and the corridor of suburbs south of Seattle, Tacoma, Lakewood, Federal Way, became the natural landing ground.
From eight families to a corridor
In 1977, by the community’s own reckoning, just eight Korean families lived in Federal Way. The transformation that followed was rapid. A wave of immigrants in the 1970s and 1980s, professionals and entrepreneurs taking advantage of liberalised U.S. immigration law, looked at the suburbs south of Seattle and chose Federal Way for reasons that families anywhere would recognise: it felt clean, safe, and the schools were good.
One of the figures who shaped the community was Ben Song, a Korean immigrant and Christian minister who arrived in the early 1970s. He helped build the institutional scaffolding newcomers needed, an immigration centre staffed with translators and social workers, the kind of soft landing that turns a place into a destination.
A community that announced itself
By 1990 the numbers had become undeniable. Roughly 7,000 Koreans lived in Federal Way, and Korean children were the largest and fastest-growing minority in the local school district. The bilingual English programme in Federal Way schools jumped from 11 students in 1987 to 77 by 1990.
More than 70 Korean businesses lined Pacific Highway South between South 304th and South 336th streets, selling everything from groceries to haircuts to videocassettes. There was the Sae Ro Na Oriental Food Market, where four in five customers were Korean, the Agape Korean Book Center, Han’s Alterations, the Korea Tourist Bureau, the Mi Rak Restaurant, and the Bando Video Store. A Korean Chamber of Commerce organised the merchants. The Korean Journal newspaper printed the news, and from 1983 KOAM-TV broadcast Korean soap operas and local bulletins to thousands of subscribing households.
Why Federal Way and not Tacoma or north Seattle? The residents of the time gave consistent answers. It was convenient, it was clean, and above all it was for the children. Soojoung Ko, who managed KOAM-TV, put it plainly when she said everything here was clean, and that for the children Federal Way was much better.
The faith that held it together
Religion was the spine of the community, as it has been for Korean diasporas across America, from Koreatown in Los Angeles to Annandale, Virginia. Around a quarter of South Koreans are Christian, and the proportion among immigrants ran higher still. By 1990 four Christian churches served Korean congregations in Federal Way, with more planned.
The Federal Way Korean Mission Church had already grown to 750 members and built its own home on South 308th Street, financed by half a million dollars in congregational donations. For a community two decades old, raising a church of one’s own was a statement of permanence.
The Landmarks
H Mart, 31217 Pacific Highway South. The anchor of Korean Federal Way today, this branch of the national Korean grocery chain runs from morning until late, with a fish counter of live seafood, walls of kimchi and banchan, a Korean deli, and a food court where families eat after the weekly shop. For many Korean households across south King County it is the default destination.
Federal Way Korean Mission Church, South 308th Street. One of the community’s oldest congregations, it built its own sanctuary by 1990 with 750 members and donations totalling half a million dollars. It remains a centre of Korean worship and social life in the city.
Palace Korean Bar & Grill. A long-running barbecue and banquet restaurant that has become a fixture for celebrations, with tabletop grills and the full sweep of Korean dishes. It draws diners from across the Seattle-Tacoma corridor, not only from Federal Way.
Seoul Tofu House, 31406 Pacific Highway South. A specialist in soondubu, the bubbling soft-tofu stew that arrives still boiling in a stone bowl. Its presence on the highway speaks to a community large enough to support restaurants devoted to a single dish.
Chosun Korean BBQ, 1616 South 325th Street. Another anchor of the barbecue scene just off Pacific Highway, grilling marinated galbi and bulgogi over open flame for a steady weekend crowd.
Hae Song Korean BBQ, 32703 Pacific Highway South. Further down the same corridor, this barbecue house rounds out a stretch of highway where a hungry family can choose between half a dozen Korean kitchens within a mile.
Korean Women’s Association, headquartered in Tacoma. Founded in 1972 as a social club for the wives of American servicemen, it grew into a multicultural nonprofit administering social service programmes across eleven western Washington counties, employing staff who speak 27 languages. It is the institutional memory of how the whole community began.
Where They Came From
The earliest arrivals came as the wives of American servicemen, women from across South Korea who met their husbands during postings near Seoul, Uijeongbu, and the bases of Gyeonggi Province. They settled near Fort Lewis and McChord, and their presence created the first Korean foothold in the south Puget Sound.
The larger wave that built modern Federal Way came after the 1965 reform of U.S. immigration law, which abolished the old national-origin quotas. These were the professionals and merchants of South Korea’s rising middle class, leaving a country in the middle of its rapid industrial transformation. Many had relatives already settled near the bases, and chain migration did the rest, an aunt sponsoring a niece, a brother opening a shop and sending for the family.
Federal Way’s appeal was specific. It was cheaper and quieter than Seattle, safer and better-schooled than the rougher edges of Tacoma. Fittingly, the city later named the South Korean port of Donghae as one of its sister cities, alongside Hachinohe in Japan and Rivne in Ukraine.
The pattern was not unique to the Pacific Northwest. The same forces, military marriage, the 1965 reforms, and a strong preference for good public schools, built Korean suburbs across the country, from Duluth, Georgia to the towns of northern New Jersey. What set Federal Way apart was its origin story rooted so directly in the army bases of the south sound.
Federal Way Today
The community has matured rather than faded. Some of the 1990s landmarks have closed, the Federal Way branch of Pal-Do World shut its doors, with that Korean supermarket now operating in nearby Lakewood, but the corridor along Pacific Highway South remains visibly Korean, anchored now by H Mart rather than the small markets of the 1980s.
The Korean presence here exists in conversation with the other Asian communities of the Eastside and south sound, from the Chinese families of Bellevue to the Korean enclaves of Tacoma, Lakewood, and Lynnwood, and with the older Korean strongholds back east such as Fort Lee, New Jersey. Federal Way’s Korean households spread out across the school district, sending children to Todd Beamer and Decatur high schools, and the bilingual classrooms that once held a dozen students are a distant memory.
The second and third generations have scattered into the wider region, into tech jobs in Seattle and Bellevue, into universities, into suburbs further out, the familiar trajectory of an immigrant community whose children grow up American. But the highway holds. New restaurants open as old ones close, and the weekend rhythm of grocery run, church, and a shared meal carries on much as it did when the first families arrived.
What endures is the texture of daily life: the barbecue smoke and tofu steam along the highway, the Sunday churches, the H Mart car park full on weekend mornings. A community that started with eight families and a handful of lonely military wives has become a permanent part of the map between Seattle and Tacoma, no longer discovering America but quietly at home in it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How large is the Korean community in Federal Way, Washington?
By 1990, around 7,000 Koreans lived in Federal Way, and Koreans have remained one of the largest Asian groups in the city, which is roughly 15.5 percent Asian overall. The Koreans in Federal Way form one of the most established Korean communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Why did Koreans settle in Federal Way?
The community began with Korean wives of American servicemen stationed near Fort Lewis and McChord in the 1950s and 1960s. Their relatives followed after the 1965 immigration reforms, choosing Federal Way for its safety, cleanliness, affordability, and good schools.
Where is the Korean district in Federal Way?
The Korean businesses cluster along Pacific Highway South, historically between South 304th and South 336th streets. This is where you find H Mart, Korean barbecue restaurants, tofu houses, churches, and Korean-owned shops.
Where do Koreans in Federal Way buy Korean groceries?
The main Korean supermarket is H Mart at 31217 Pacific Highway South, with a fresh seafood counter, deli, and food court. The Federal Way branch of Pal-Do World has closed, and that chain now operates in nearby Lakewood.
What is the Korean Women’s Association?
Founded in Tacoma in 1972 by Kim Nam Hui as a social club for the wives of American servicemen, the Korean Women’s Association grew into a multicultural human services nonprofit serving roughly 150,000 people a year across eleven western Washington counties.
Are there Korean churches in Federal Way?
Yes. The Koreans in Federal Way are strongly Christian, and by 1990 four Korean congregations were established, including the Federal Way Korean Mission Church on South 308th Street, which built its own sanctuary with 750 members.
If your family’s story passed through Federal Way, or any of the places Koreans have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From a base town near Seoul to a barbecue house on Pacific Highway South, to wherever you are now.