A Heated Campaign for a Ceremonial Post

Korean-Americans in New York have more than 1,000 associations and churches. These groups help new immigrants and others in their community. - - Donna Poisl

By KIRK SEMPLE

The three candidates have spent upward of $200,000 each, much of it from their own pockets. They have hired campaign staffs, opened campaign offices, speechified and debated, conducted polling, recorded campaign songs and distributed carloads of posters, banners, T-shirts, pamphlets and balloons.

All for this: the presidency of the Korean-American Association of Greater New York, a volunteer position in an organization that many Korean-Americans, including its staff members, say is largely ceremonial.

The campaign, which comes to a close with the election on Sunday, is a biennial rite that stirs up the Korean-American community here — riveting some, dismaying others — even as it unfolds out of view of most other New Yorkers.
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