Asian Americans and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots/Uprising

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Sang-Hee Lee
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Korean Immigrant ◽  
South Central ◽  
Ethnic Tension ◽  
Los Angeles Riots ◽  
South Central Los Angeles

Although the 1992 Los Angeles riots have been described as a “race riot” sparked by the acquittals of a group of mostly white police officers charged with excessively beating black motorist Rodney King, the widespread targeting and destruction of Asian-owned (mainly Korean) property in and around South Central Los Angeles stands out as one of the most striking aspects of the uprising. For all the commentary generated about the state of black-white relations, African American youths, and the decline of America’s inner cities, the riots also gave many Americans their first awareness of the presence of a Korean immigrant population in Southern California, a large number of Korean shop owners, and the existence of what was commonly framed as the “black-Korean conflict.” For Korean Americans, and Asian Americans more generally, the Los Angeles riots represented a shattered “American dream” and brought focus to their tenuous hold on economic mobility and social inclusion in a society fraught by racial and ethnic tension. The riots furthermore marked a turning point that placed Asian immigrants and Asian Americans at the center of new conversations about social relations in a multiracial America, the place of new immigrants, and the responsibilities of relatively privileged minorities toward the less privileged.

After the Unrest: Ten Years of Rebuilding Los Angeles following the Trauma of 1992

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Fulton
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Physical Damage ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
South Central ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
South Central Los Angeles

It is always difficult to measure urban resilience, but never more so when the trauma results from civil unrest, as opposed to a natural disaster or enemy attack.With natural disasters, it is frequently difficult to place blame, even if “acts of God” are sometimes all too intertwined with ill-advised decisions to site buildings in vulnerable areas. Wars and other attacks usually entail clear enemies, and eventually come to some negotiated halt, accompanied by greater territorial clarity. With riots and civil unrest, by contrast, destruction is community-based. Victims and perpetrators live in close proximity; violence is often inflicted within the very neighborhoods that feel most aggrieved; and recovery entails the need to redress not just physical damage but also deeply ingrained mistrust. Rebuilding, in this sense, requires not just investment in real estate, but also a variety of human capital—local infusions of community dynamism, neighborly cooperation, and no small measure of hope. In the United States, Los Angeles, California, stands out as the site of two generations of civil unrest: the Watts riots of 1965 and the civil unrest of 1992. The 1992 disturbance was the most damaging urban riot in American history, killing fifty-four people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Touched off by the acquittal on April 29 of white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King, the rampage lasted several days and spread to an area much larger than the earlier riots in Watts. The disturbance ranged across dozens of square miles, mostly along the lengthy commercial strips in the southern part of the city of Los Angeles, including many areas not traditionally viewed as part of South Central. It even spilled northward above the Santa Monica Freeway into Hollywood, the traditionally Jewish Fairfax district, and other neighborhoods far from the traditional centers of African-American residence. This chapter investigates a full decade of efforts to rebuild South Central Los Angeles, following the trial of King’s assailants. In so many ways, Los Angeles is a city like no other—a vast but low-rise city, dense and sprawling at the same time. Auto-oriented and generally without high-rises, Los Angeles might seem different from a more traditional metropolis such as New York.

Migration to the “First Large Suburban Ghetto” in America

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-106
Author(s):  
Chanhaeng Lee
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Korean Immigrant ◽  
South Central ◽  
South Central Los Angeles ◽  
American Society

In this article, I argue that Korean immigrant merchants were active agents who opened small businesses in South Central Los Angeles in order to overcome a range of disadvantages faced in American society. From a structural point of view, Korean immigrant merchants constituted a middleman minority group that played the dual role of “oppressed and oppressor” in the suburban ghetto. Although these merchants made efforts to maintain civil relations with their African American customers, they were often treated with hostile attitudes largely because of the exploitative relationship that existed between the two groups. However, I maintain that Korean American journalists and scholars have not only misunderstood the identity of the middleman minority as an innocent buffer but have also erroneously estimated that race relations with African Americans in Los Angeles were better than those in other areas of the United States.

scholarly journals Some Children Left Behind

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Elizabeth Rosas
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Parents ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
South Central ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
South Central Los Angeles ◽  
The U.S

Using a combination of oral life history interviews, field observation, and conversations with undocumented Mexican immigrant parents raising children born in the United States in South Central Los Angeles, California, this in-depth consideration of the state of emergency they face as a result of the U.S. government's implementation of the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) and Secure Communities Program (SCP) reveals their uniquely local and transnational confrontation of an increasingly insecure family situation that stretches across the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout U.S. inner cities, like South Central Los Angeles. The visibly public alienation these children, most recently identified as citizen kids endure makes evident that tragically they are most vulnerable to the indignities born out of these programs. The convergence of minor offenses committed by their parents, the illegality of their immigration status, and these children's U.S. citizenship status have paved the way for an incalculable loss that is most palpable when pausing to observe their multifaceted alienation. The relationship between these children's citizenship status, family relationships, day to day interactions, and these program's implementation reveals an underestimated yet infinitely tragic state of emergency.

Contextualizing from Within: Perceptions of Physical Disorder in a South Central L.A. African American Mosque

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela J. Prickett
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Social Disorganization ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Physical Disorder ◽  
Broken Windows ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
Physical Problems ◽  
South Central ◽  
South Central Los Angeles

Physical disorder is fundamental to how urban sociologists understand the inner workings of a neighborhood. This article takes advantage of ethnographic and historical research to understand how, over time, participants in an urban mosque in South Central Los Angeles develop patterns of meaning–making and decision–making about physical disorder. I examine how specific negative physical conditions on the property came to exist as well as the varied processes by which they changed—both improving and worsening—over the community's long history. Contrary to dominant “social disorganization” and “broken windows” theories that argue disorder is always a destructive force, I find that members saw specific signs of physical disorder as links to their collective past as well as placeholders for a future they hoped to construct. I then analyze how these shared imaginings shaped the ways members responded to physical problems in the present. The strength of this “contextualizing from within” approach is that attention to context and period allows researchers to better theorize why communities may or may not organize to repair physical disorder.

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