remain in Japan at the end of the war became known as Zainichi Koreans, while the roughly 40 thousand who were trapped in Karafuto after the Soviet invasion are typically referred to as Sakhalin Koreans. According to the statistics at Immigration Bureau of Japan, there were 901,284 Koreans resident in Japan , of whom 515,570 were permanent residents and another 284,840 were naturalized citizens. Aside from migration within the Empire of Japan or its puppet state of Manchukuo, some Koreans also escaped Japanese-ruled territory entirely, heading to Shanghai, a major centre of the Korean independence movement or to the already-established Korean communities of the Russian Far East. However, the latter would find themselves deported to Central Asia in 1938. After independence Korea gained its independence after the Surrender of Japan in 1945 after World War II but was divided into North and South. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, ethnic Koreans in China (Joseonjok or Chaoxianzu) became officially recognised as one of the 56 ethnic groups of the country. They are considered to be one of the "major minorities". Their population grew to about 2 million; they stayed mostly in Northeastern China, where their ancestors had initially settled. Their largest population was concentrated in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin, where they numbered 854,000 in 1997. Korean emigration to the United States is known to have begun as early as 1903, but the Korean American community did not grow to a significant size until after the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965. Between 1.5 and 2 million Koreans now live in the United States, mostly in metropolitan areas. A handful are descended from laborers who migrated to Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A significant number are descended from orphans of the Korean War, in which the United States was a major ally of South Korea and provided the bulk of the United Nations troops that served there. Thousands were adopted by American (mostly Caucasian) families in the years following the war, when their plight was covered on television. The vast majority, however, immigrated or are descended from those who immigrated after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 abolished national immigration quotas. Europe and Latin America were also minor destinations for post-war Korean emigration. Korean immigration to Latin America was documented as early as the 1950s; North Korean prisoners of