Karen K. Chen

L.A. Text and Context / Dr. Martin

Term Paper

South Central Los Angeles fell into a devastated eruption in the afternoon of April 29, 1992. For three days, Los Angeles was enthralled by horrible scenes of fire and violence. The 1992 Los Angeles racial disturbance was a shocking event. The violence that was caused by the verdict at the Rodney King trial broke out in South Central Los Angeles and chaos that followed torn down a large proportion of businesses in that area as well as the up North of Korea town. As the event opened up, the mass violence, which started out as a protest against the dominant society, was now reconfigured as outbreak of turmoil between Koreans and African Americans.[1] During the riot and the subsequent time period, the media heavily focused on a homicide case that had occurred a year ago, the murder of a 15- year old African American girl by a Korean store owner. The media also showed close- ups of armed Korean store owners and their family and friends trying to protect their stores during the three- day riot. The media coverage created and perpetuated an image of Korean entrepreneurs as “ruthless economic exploiters” and “heartless merchants”.[2] The Korean merchants unexpectedly suffered huge economic losses as well as psychological trauma. Whether these images were portrayed correctly or not, the skirmish between African and Korean Americans in 1992 triggered the eruption of racial tension, which has been there since the earliest settlement of Koreans in Los Angeles.

The perspectives of opposite positions between African and Koreans Americans are due to: 1) the presence of Korean merchants in urban poor minority communities and these merchants’ business practice. 2) the antagonistic activities towards Korean merchants and their businesses by African American residents.[3] In the paper, there will be discussions and analyses over the cultural, economic and political factors involved in the tensions between the Korean and Afro-American communities in Watts/L.A..

African Americans were considered the biggest victims in the 1992 L.A. riot. Due to the racial problem in a majority white dominate country, most of their descendents live in heavily segregated areas within major cities. In these areas, African Americans have to pay extra attention to their job opportunities, which are rapidly decreasing while the population of immigrants is growing in incredibly fast speed. Korean immigrant entrepreneurs came to the United States to pursue the American middle-class dream. Like most of Asian immigrants, Korean immigrants came to United States generally with a high socioeconomic status.[4] Many had already finished a college education in Korea, and most of those with occupational experience in Korean had been employed either in professional or managerial occupations prior to immigrating.[5] However, when they arrive in U.S., most of Korean immigrants, due to the barriers of language and culture, could not utilize their previous educational and occupational resources. Because of the reality of limited occupational choices, the types of occupations currently available to them are either self-employment in a small business or low –wage, low-skill service/manual occupations.[6] This limited occupational structure compelled a high proportion of Korean immigrants to open and operate small business without any previous business experience. The small business opportunities available to them are also limited to two types: the inner-city retail and service businesses[7], which are often opened in poor urban neighborhoods for the lower cost.

Korean immigrants’ entry into inner-city minority markets aggravates the problem of job scarcity and raises the racial tension as African Americans sense that their “territory” has been invaded, and the Korean merchants overcharge them as well as they do not treat African American customers with respect. In 1991 the Brotherhood Crusade, a vocal black organization headed by Danny Bakewell, organized a boycott against Chung’s Liquor Mart, because Tae Sam Park, the owner, had killed Lee Arthur Mitchell, who was unarmed, for attempted robbery. Korean merchant are attached to the main causes of these incidents due to social and cultural differences. In divergence, the role of Korean culture comes in three different ways to that of African Americans—1) Korean merchants’ approaches toward businesses, 2) Korean Americans’ perception to African Americans’ culture, 3) the feeling of media’s discussion over African and Korean Americans’ relationship.[8] The following statements exemplify various standpoints of Korean merchants.

Mr. Kim is a friend of Du Soon Ja, who killed Latasha Harlins for scuffling over a bottle of orange juice in March of 1991. He stated:

Another grocer Mrs. Song feels extremely difficult to open a business in poor urban neighborhood. She stated:

Mrs. Song was again asked to describe the differences of Korean’s culture to that of others’. She compares cultures in the following way:

When Korean merchants encounter unpleasant business interaction, they basically react in two ways: by ignoring the customer or by getting angry and confronting him or her.[12] Being totally ignored by a merchant is an especially sensitive issue for many African Americans, because they perceive it as racial discrimination.  A typical Korean merchant’s response to a customer often exacerbates the existing unseen hostile into a direct confrontation.

Emphasizing the causes of racial tension, the centrality of economy context takes a huge part of responsibility to ethnic antagonism. In Los Angeles urban areas, African and Korean Americans compete in the small business arena. Many African American find it difficult to obtain loans from banks to finance their businesses. Thus, faced with the large quantity of Korean- owned stores in their neighborhood, the African Americans often wonder the source of Korean monies. Their antipathy comes from the banking and business systems that seem to favor Korean immigrants and refuses potential African American businessmen.[13]  However, instead of getting financial help from American banking system, majority of Korean merchants get financed in two ways: 1) borrowing money from friends and relatives (a Korean merchant says that over 90% of Koreans use this way), 2) relying on “rotating credit association”[14]—it involves a group of family members or co-ethnic friends to regularly invest a certain amount of money; by lottery, and sometimes by needs, one person is chosen to get the pooled fund. Unaware of the “rotating credit association” system, African Americans resent Koreans’ success in small businesses because they think Koreans earn their money through devious ways.[15] The following chart shows black- owned businesses bring in less income than Korean and Hispanic businesses. In Los Angeles county, Korean businesses, less than one third the number of black businesses, earn more money than that of black stores.[16]

Koreans’ businesses are in role of middleman minority.[17] They usually do not need support from the host society, and because of that they are solitary and separate from the rest of ethnicities. Their successes in small businesses often attribute to their capability for selling merchandises in relative low prices, and their tradition of using only family members as employees allow them to make use of the unpaid labor on business. Therefore, the angry African American owners complain that Koreans use low-priced to win over their customers and gradually “take over” their community. In sum, the economic success and communal solidarity of Korean middleman groups raise up the hostility of African American community.

Korean American in Los Angeles resisted and rejected various media representation of the Los Angeles riots, from the individual images of gun-holding watchman to the overall focus on the Black-Korean conflict. Language barriers often prevent from expressing their anger towards television and newspaper coverage of the racial conflict between African Americans and Koreans. To most of Koreans, the Black-Korean conflict was largely a media construction, which served to promote interracial conflict—a typical strategy of the American power elites to maintain the racial and economic status quo.[18] A second generation Korean Americans committed to progressive politics argued that the media anaesthetized people to accept the vision of an interethnic conflict.[19] Similarly, Roy Hong of the Korean Immigrant Workers’ Advocates suggested that the power elite and the media had manufactured the Black-Korean conflict.[20] The arrival of South Korean officials after the riots projected a distorted image of the powerful Los Angeles establishment’s favoring Korean Americans over other minority groups.[21] Most of Koreans think South Korean government’s involvement has not help in any way; their visit after the riot serves no practical comfort to Korean American society, and it is extremely political. Hong then expressed “When these people (South Korean officials) come the mayor greets them, gives them the key to the city and so on, and the Black and Latino communities understandably fell something is going on. Well, all the sucker got is a key!”[22] In this account, the city authorities and the mass media were intentionally projecting a favored image of Korean American victims, but the result often creates a stronger suspicion and hatred from other minority groups.