The Bronx senior center in Bedford Park, at 2943 Bainbridge Avenue, is rented from the Bedford Park Presbyterian Church. The center has been losing members; it had 200 just five years ago. Many of them speak little English and find themselves culturally and socially isolated from their predominantly Latino and black neighbors. A frequent complaint is that there is no Korean restaurant nearby.

In the 200-square-foot space that is the center, members crowd in for games of paduk — often called Korean chess — on Mondays, followed by English lessons and line dancing on Tuesdays. Computer skills are taught on Wednesdays, calligraphy on Thursdays. Fridays are for singing Korean pop songs from the 1960s and ’70s.

Chong Cha Lee, 62, comes to the center every week because she said she was most comfortable speaking Korean. She settled in the Bronx in 1984 with her husband and three children from Seoul; her sister was already living in the borough. Ms. Lee (who is not related to Abraham) soon found work as a hairdresser. The family joined a Korean church, shopped at Korean stores and made Korean friends.

Across the Bronx, Koreans were making themselves at home. Public libraries expanded their collections of Korean-language books, and neighborhood bodegas started stocking kimchi and tofu. In the mid-1990s, a contingent of Bronx Koreans, armed with Korean flags and banners, even marched down the Grand Concourse in an annual spring parade that was part of a celebration of the borough known as Bronxweek.

“All of a sudden, there was a sizable number of Koreans in the Bronx,” said Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx borough historian. “You looked in the phone book, and there were a lot of people whose family name was Kim.”

Image Abraham Lee, head of the association, said, "No space, no money, that's the problem." Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

But over the years, many of those Korean families moved away. Those who stayed included older Koreans who said they could not afford to leave. In recent years, they have been joined by those in government-subsidized apartments for the elderly in Bedford Park and elsewhere in the Bronx. Currently, one in five Koreans living in the Bronx is age 65 or older, according to the census analysis.