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"Ethnic" Los Angeles

Comparative Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality

Anne Cong-Huyen, Thania Lucero, Joyce Park, Constance Cheeks, Charlie Kim, Sophia Cole, Julio Damian Rodriguez, Andrea Mora, Jazz Kiang, Samantha Tran, Katie Nak, Authors
4/29 LA Riots, page 1 of 2
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"Clash of Colors" of the L.A Riot: Mistreatment of the U.S government and misrepresentation of the mass media

The U.S. mass media especially major news media companies played crucial role(s) to portray both positive and negative aspects of how and why the 1992 L.A Riots began and why there were clashes between African American community and Korean American community. Since the releasing a tape of Rodney King's beating by LAPD officers and Sunja Du versus Latasha Harlins case were strictly controlled and misrepresented for both Du's image of Koreans in L.A and Harlins who resided in South Central. The mass media covered only outraged story and portrayed all Koreans are "cold heart" immigrants who moved to L.A to scam money from working-class communities. Major news corporations did not cover both sides' stories and background history of why this tragedy occurred and how American society can facilitate communities with diverse demographics.  

Majority of Korean immigrants in South Central owned the grocery/liquor. The reason these immigrants decided to open up the business is cheap rent and cash flow. Majority of residents in South Central are African Americans and Latino Americans. Based on the “Use and Abuse of Race and Culture: Black-Korean Tension in America” by Kyeyoung Park, conflicts between Black-Korean relationship grow in 80s and early 90s when many South Central residents were angry about the government's welfare system and institutional racism that often marginalized Blacks and Latinos. 

Due to the cultural difference and prejudice between Black customers and Korean merchants, tensions were slowly built up and caused an incident like Sunja Du who was a Korean store owner shot and killed Latasha Harlins. Black community was outraged by Du’s case result and they were angry about the injustice and racism against their community. Many African Americans and some community organization took a part of action to boycott in front of the Korean owned stores where they faced a mistreatment  by Korean merchants. During the 92 unrest, many Korean stores were burnt down and damaged. Based on some readings, these stores were not restored at least a year duration and average financial loss were from $2000 to $1,750,000. The damages were wide spread to family members who were killed during the riot and youth/young adult who dropped out of high school to facilitate their family business to recover. Basically, Korean immigrants experiences during the unrest still haunt many Korean Americans and a lesson of interracial conflict would be something we need to be aware of everyday of our lives in the US.

Many African American communities were angry since the Rodney King versus LAPD incident. The American media caused more tensions between African Americans, Whites, and Korean American community. Both King and Du v.s Harlin’s pushed all the anger and frustration to the climax to start the riot. Many African Americans were outraged and stunned by injustice and mistreatment of African Americans community and individuals. A law enforcement and government officials did not have a decent resistant plan for the unrest and thus anger towards to Korean immigrants rapidly grew amongst African American residents in South Central LA. Ultimately, many African Americans acted out their frustrations of government and law enforcement injustice. For Latin American immigrants, many Hispanic immigrants faced possibly worst socioeconomic status and often young adult men were affiliated with a gang. Some immigrants tried their best to keep their job and pursue better standard of living for their family. However, a lack of political representation also marginalized them to their own ‘American Dream’. During the unrest, some Hispanic immigrants were involved in the riot and some faced damages of their own small business or a lost a job due to the unrest. For instance, some Latinos defended Korean stores, but others also participated in looting. Due to the unrest, many American media portrayed and generalized Latino immigrants/Latino Americans as “bad looters” (Park). All three groups, Blacks, Koreans, and Latinos faced economic, psychological, and emotional damages. A lot of them were killed in the street and lost jobs. It was just brutal and a lack of government official involvement and their late response caused more damage to ethnic communities in Los Angeles.

    



 

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Park, Kyeyoung. "An Analysis of Latino-Korean Relations in the Workplace: Latino Perspectives in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest."Amerasia Journal. (2012): 143-169. Print.

Park, Kyeyoung."Use and Abuse of Race and Culture: Black-Korean Tension in America." American Anthropologist, New Series. 98. (1996): 492-499. Print.


By Charlie Kim
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A documentary video about the 92 L.A Riot from the Korean American perspective:



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