In downtown Santa Clara, Calif., there sits a three-mile stretch of Korean-owned restaurants and small businesses, a humble metropolis that bustles with community members, merchants and tourists. It is often referred to as Silicon Valley’s Koreatown. 

Except some won’t call it that. Specifically, the members of the Santa Clara City Council. 

In early February, the City Council voted down a proposal to formally recognize the cultural district as Koreatown.

Introduced by the Korean American Chamber of Commerce of Silicon Valley, the proposal asked that the city erect a Koreatown monument sign and three freeway signs, hire Korean-speaking police officers to patrol the area and encourage merchants to post signs in English. 

The recognition would have been a win-win situation, says Alex Hull, president of the Chamber. He says an official status would have helped investors take notice of the business mecca, as Koreans drive in daily from surrounding cities such as San Jose, Monterey, Freemont and Fresno. It would have also established the area as a tourist destination. Southern California tour buses often make lunch stops in the neighborhood on their way back from San Francisco.

“We’re serving as a regional hub for Korean Americans throughout Silicon Valley,” says Hull, who helped collect 3,000 petitions from community members, including non-Koreans, in support of the proposal. “Unlike L.A. where there are pockets of Korean-owned businesses, we’re pretty much it.”

But opponents, mostly Portuguese and Italian residents whose families immigrated to the area in the 1800s, argued that the special status would create an exclusive enclave in the community.

About 150 community members showed up at the February City Council meeting. Only about 10 were Korean.

“I felt a lot of tension in the air,” Hull says. “People thought they were going to be excluded.”

Hull estimates that Korean-owned businesses pump about $9.7 million each year into the city’s economy, helping finance public schools, police and fire departments.

Watching the area thrive, Hull says it’s apparent: With or without a formal designation, their Koreatown already exists.