Post-1992 Los Angeles Unrest: Black-Latino-Korean Relations

Relations between South Korean Business Owners and Minorities in South Los Angeles

After the Los Angeles civil riots in the spring of 1992, relations between his owner of the South Korean business and other minorities in South Los Angeles improved in some ways, but remained largely unchanged in others. A Kyeyoung Park study found that relations with the Latinx community improved slightly, but relations with the African-American community remained broadly constant. Park attributes this to "race, nationality, class and culture" (144). In general, Park estimated that Latinos admired "Korean work ethics" and Latinos "wanted to emulate them," which strengthened relations between South Korea and Latinos. (147). But because of African-Americans seeing Koreans through a different lens, one of class and citizenship, their relationship with the Korean community continues to be strained.

Perception of Koreans by Other Minority Groups

In this writer’s opinion, much of the way that Koreans are perceived by other minority groups comes from their insular cultural practices. Being accepted and respected by the Korean community is paramount to the way in which they tend to treat persons who are different from them. One must “work their way into” a cultural understanding with Koreans before they are accepted. Park defines the relationship between Blacks and Koreans as one in which Blacks see Koreans as “sojourners” because of the perception of the Black community that Koreans “lack a commitment to the community and appear to reap rewards too soon, without sufficient suffering or struggle” (145). African-Americans’ struggle for equality in America bends their perception of other groups to align with theirs. The perception that African-Americans hold about Koreans likely comes from the Koreans’ insular culture practices where they tend to exclude anyone but other Koreans from their trusted inner circles and tend to treat Blacks with a modicum of suspicion and contempt. In this writer’s opinion, relations between Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans will continue to evolve but never settle into anything approaching tolerance or symbiosis because what Park says divides them, specifically race, citizenship, class, and culture.

Works Cited

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, 38:1 (2012): 143-169. Accessed March 12, 2017.

---. “The Racial Cartography of Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans.” University of California at Los Angeles, Asian-American Studies Course. Accessed March 12, 2017.