Korean American Study

348

9.

The Racial Cartography of Post-Unrest LA

“Clearly the Black/White binary is central to racial and political thought and practice in the

United States…However, if we look at only this binary, we may misread the dynamics of white

supremacy in different contexts” (Smith 2006, 71). The U.S. is moving towards a society divided

four-fold by color: Whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. In order to

address the increasing complexity of racial politics and racial identity today, we should recognize

“antagonisms and alliances among racially defined minority groups” (Omi and Winant 1994,

154). An ethnographic examination of South LA communities (1992-2002) displays a complex

negotiation of multipolar relationships, particularly between Koreans, Blacks, and Latinos. For

this reason, I propose that rather than apply the binary White-Black racial hierarchy model, we

should view racial relations as an unfolding racial cartography, inflected on multiple axes by

categories such as class, citizenship, and culture.

The 1992 unrest was widely characterized as a Black-Korean conflict, where African

Americans demanded economic and social justice and protested punitive policing and the unfair

distribution of development projects, by damaging Korean-owned businesses and treating

Koreans as a proxy for White power. However, the unrest and its aftermath were more

complicated, involving not only Blacks, Koreans, and Whites,1 but also Latinos, who accounted

for over 50 percent of those arrested in the event. Because they lived and worked in close

proximity to each other, Blacks, Koreans, and Latinos had to negotiate their own racial identities

relative to each other. However, despite recognition of racial difference, there exist overlaps as

well. While the 1992 unrest unearthed latent tensions between many Korean business owners and

349

African Americans and Latinos, many Koreans have hired Blacks and Latinos as employees,

leading to the development of certain alliances and affinities.

The LA unrest unveiled racial fault lines among oft-neglected racial/ethnic minorities—

Koreans, Central Americans, and Mexicans—who were portrayed as both victims and

victimizers. Before the unrest, antagonisms had risen to volatile levels not only between Whites

and Blacks over the issue of police brutality (as exemplified by the Rodney King beating), and

between African Americans and Koreans (as displayed by the Du-Harlins case), but also between

Latinos and African Americans over various issues: the affirmative action program, the

reapportionment plans of the city, the county, and Board of Education, the hiring practices at

institutions like Martin Luther King, Jr., Hospital, and competition for the position of Los

Angeles police chief (Navarro 1993, 78).

As the American Anthropological Association’s statement on race (1998, 3) concluded,

contemporary inequalities between racial groups are not consequences of their biological

inheritance, but rather products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational,

and political circumstances. Economic position, political considerations, different positions

within the U.S. racial hierarchy, and legal status all shape how people understand others and

themselves. Accordingly, this concluding chapter proposes a racial cartography that focuses on

social and political dynamics to answer the following question: how do people in South LA view

others and themselves with regards to their racial status and rights/entitlements; racial distance

(i.e., how close each racial/ethnic group feels to other groups); group racial tensions; and racial

unrest?

Racial Cartography

350

Claire Kim (1999) has suggested that we need to do more than trace separate racial

trajectories or elaborate a hierarchy defined by Black-White opposition. She

problematizes the concept of racial hierarchy, a vertical ranking, as it does not consider

the ways different groups are racialized differently (Kim 2004, 998).2

This book has focused on how structural inequality impacted relations among Koreans,

African Americans, and Latinos. Specifically, race, citizenship, class, and culture were axes of

inequality in a multi-tiered “racial cartography” that affected how the Los Angeles residents

thought about and interacted with each other. Race, class, citizenship, and culture are interwoven

in hierarchical power relations among groups, and evidenced in the processes of social inequality

and conflict.

Thus I am proposing a conceptual framework of “racial cartography” that offers insight

into intergroup tensions and relations in this country’s changing demographic contours. My

notion of racial cartography is based on the cognitive mapping of my interviewees’ discourses,

which may contrast significantly with empirical figures. “Racial cartography” is a theoretical

apparatus for thinking about race in emergent urban contexts. My goal was to visualize a

discussion on interracial relationships among my interviewees in South LA that involved the

issues of racial status, rights and entitlements, racial distance, and racial tension. With Whites at

the top and African Americans and Native Americans securely positioned at the right and the

bottom, Asian Americans and Latinos have yet to prove their national belonging and symbolic

integration in the U.S. nation-state, even though they have over a century of presence,

contribution, and struggle in the U.S.

As I presented in the Introduction, my racial cartography constitute orienting

social maps that people carry in their heads to negotiate reality, but they are both social

351

and spatial (the spatial element is still there, given that segregation plays such an

important role in race relations).3 They are built via social experience (including received

stereotypes, media input, etc.), class position, and gender, as well as personal interaction

and experience, in the real world of actual urban space. Moreover, they are not dualistic

in structure (Black-White, Latino-Black), but are created in a landscape of racial

hierarchies that are dynamic, often non-congruent, and contested (i.e. the hierarchy is not

universally agreed on or stable). I believe that the concept of racial cartography I espouse,

with race, class, citizenship, and culture interconnected, can help form an understanding

on the future of race relations moving beyond the binary of White-African American

relations.

I focus on selected variables in the creation of these maps, including the question of

priority of occupancy (territoriality). My model is more of a hologram, a layering, that comes

into play situationally, and an orienting background; in that sense, it is truer to real lived

experience. In addition, it is a landscape that people both live in and have a role in creating; it

seems that the Korean merchants intuitively sensed that after the unrest they had to replace

Latino employees with African Americans.

There are several assumptions that undergird my model of racial cartography.

First, racial positions are mapped out along the axis of local schemes: specifically,

economic indicators (Y) and rights of prior occupancy (X).4 Significant gaps in

socioeconomic status between these groups (Y) often imply that the U.S. is becoming

multi-polar.

{Insert Figure 9.1 near here}

352

Race has long been the modality in which class is lived, as well as the

determining factor for participation in the “national” economy: which sectors and jobs

people have access to, with and against whom they identify and struggle, etc. (Hall 1980,

as cited in Jung 2009, 391). The politics of national belonging intertwine with race, class,

and other categories in the making and remaking of the nation. For precision, let us say

that Y = household income above taxable minimum and X = centuries present within the

U.S. since 1776. The Y dimension requires a different strategy from conventional

thinking about socioeconomic indicators. Instead of employing median household

income, in this model real income after taxes is used in order to emphasize the fact that

all minorities except for Asians earn below the cost of their own social reproduction (i.e.,

they do not earn enough to support themselves).

According to a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, 46 percent of U.S.

households paid no federal income tax in 2011, although most pay other federal taxes,

including Medicare and Social Security.5 Furthermore, Black wealth is only one-twelfth

of White wealth and Black financial assets are, at the median, zero (Oliver and Shapiro

1995). The 1990 Census median family income for Asian Pacific Americans was

$36,000, higher than that of Whites ($31,000), Latinos ($24,000), and African Americans

($19,000). However, using the official poverty line, 14 percent of the APA population

lived below the poverty line, which is one and a half times higher than the poverty rate

for Whites. This lowers Asian Americans’ position on the Y dimension.

Second, a consideration of Asian Americans and Latinos adds multiracial

complexities that redefine traditional relationships between race and power. Race and

power are intrinsically related, as race assumes meaning only when it becomes a criterion

353

of stratification. As Robin Kelley wrote, race has always been about supremacy and one

group oppressing another (2012, 87). Therefore, this racial cartography is full of unequal

power relations, not just between Whites and African Americans, but also between other

racial categories, pertaining to race, class, and citizenship in different institutional

contexts. Third, the model is flexible: it can be modified depending on the time, place,

and changing nature of relations. For instance, economic improvement or cumulated

records of residency in the U.S. will facilitate a better position for a group.

Fourth, it is important to note that unlike African Americans, Latino and Asian

Americans do not have a legacy of slavery in the U.S., and therefore do not experience

the systemic discrimination that comes with such a history (Lee and Bean 2004, 233).

“Black” is an unambiguous racial label in the U.S. The “African American” census label

is often “an expression of solidarity, of shared heritage, of the shared discrimination and

oppression they experience at the bottom of the US racial order” (Jaynes and Williams

1989, as quoted in Hunt 1997, 77). As discussed in earlier chapters, the term “Latino” is

popular in LA, with its large population of Mexican and Central American immigrants.

Although few interviewees referred to themselves as “Latinos,” preferring instead terms

related to their ethnic/national origins, American society writ large tends to lump Latin

American immigrants and their children into a large, pan-ethnic group and distribute

rewards and punishments accordingly: “As representation, this panethnic label becomes a

racial one, attributing bodily and other characteristics to members of the group,

explaining/justifying the group’s relative position in the racial order” (Hunt 1997, 54).

As is evident, people do not always identify themselves with a racial category; rather, it is

354

often assigned. Despite intra-racial variation, people seem to know what the norm or

general attitude towards a certain racial group seems to be.

African American interviewees are claiming that the economic indicators (Y), a proxy for

class, alone cannot explain the presence of the racial status quo. As shown in Figure 9.1, African

Americans promote a “right of prior occupancy” (X), a proxy for citizenship, and “the politics of

national belonging” as the alternate tool of analysis. African Americans’ insistence on rights of

residency in the U.S. partly explains why they are not always sympathetic towards immigrants.

It’s not simply because of their rights of residency but because they see immigrants doing better

economically despite their long presence in the US. In other words, economic indicators and

rights of prior occupancy might be conceived as being encompassing and hierarchical, rather

than oppositional. U.S. society has allocated racial status, rights, and entitlements based on

socioeconomic indicators, culture, political power, and symbolic integration, including

citizenship.

Explaining the model requires this comparison of immigration/citizenship status. African

Americans were not citizens until 1868 and African American men couldn’t vote until 1870,

except in the American South (Stevenson 2012, 87). African Americans and American Indians6

were here before the founding of the nation, while most European immigrants arrived after

1776.7 In the case of Latino presence in the U.S., around half arrived before and half arrived after

1965. Asian immigrants are recognized as the most recent group to enter the U.S. This politics of

national belonging entails more than just a group’s time of residency, but also its

history/memory, place, and system of political belief in everyday lives. From its first

deliberations about citizenship in 1790 up until 1952, Congress restricted naturalization to White

355

immigrants (and in 1868, extended to Americans descended from African slaves). The U.S. not

significantly dismantle racial restrictions on immigration until 1965 (Goodman et al. 2012, 70).

Like other Asian immigrants, Korean immigrants have been racialized as dependent,

feminine and fundamentally foreign since the early 1900s (Espiritu 1997). More recent

manifestations of anti-Asian sentiment include the 1980s Japan-bashing related to the success of

the Japanese auto industry that led to the murder of Chinese American engineer Vincent Chin

(1982) by two White autoworkers; they were given only three years’ probation with no jail time.

In addition, there were a host of post-9/11 crimes committed against South Asian Americans

mistaken for Muslims. The racialization of Asian Americans includes the “model minority”

ideology, which has been buttressed by post-1965 immigration laws favoring educated Asians

(Park and Park 2005).8 The “forever foreigner” and “model minority” ideologies mutually

constitute one another, for, often, once the model minority becomes too successful, exclusion

and racial vilification of “foreigners” result (Cho 1993). Moreover, although Korean Americans,

like Asian Americans more generally, are thought of as middle class in the U.S., many working-

class Koreans, just like Latinos, suffer from language barriers and find it hard to negotiate with

authorities and access crucial instrumental resources (Kwon 2015, 637). Latinos and Asian

Americans have undergone differential racialization, and Mexican Americans, in comparison to

Asian Americans, generally confront more overt racial discrimination when purchasing high-

priced goods or services (Jimenez 2008).

As African Americans had to wait centuries to gain citizenship, they at times relegate

Latinos and Koreans to the categories of “immigrant,” “foreigner,” or “undocumented worker,”

categories that point to their un-Americanness. The question commonly raised by African

American interviewees was whether other groups had suffered as much as African Americans,

356

whose ancestors contributed to the creation of this country and fought to attain civil rights, and

who still have not gained full equality. At the same time, both Latino and Korean immigrants

viewed African Americans as advantaged by their U.S. citizenship and English fluency. Korean

riot victims and their allies painfully recognized that they were no match for Blacks’ political,

social, and cultural power. From their point of view, Blacks were indeed Americans while

Koreans represented unwanted, politically impotent immigrants who subsisted in the national

shadow (Kim, N. 2008). Both Korean and Latino respondents reported their belief that Blacks

held “forever foreigner”-type prejudices against them (I elaborated on this in Chapter 2), and that

their negative attitudes toward African Americans were shaped by these tensions.

Regional Racial Cartography

In Los Angeles, racial distance is relative and relational, so the position of each locus and

arc can be mapped, as in Figure 9.2. Like the national racial cartography, LA’s racial

cartography indicates lower positions for African Americans as compared with Koreans

and Latinos (mostly Mexicans and Salvadorans).9 Asian Americans hold the next highest

position after Whites. During the last four decades, there has been increasing income

inequality in LA despite economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s. As discussed in

Chapter 1, this economic inequality has been further translated into racial and ethnic

inequality, along with the blight of inner-city poverty.

{Insert Figure 9.2 near here}

The Mexican-American War (1846-48) ended with a peace treaty transferring

New Mexico and California to the U.S. and extending the Texas border southward, and

with the U.S. incorporating nearly 80,000 Spanish speakers, mostly of mixed Spanish and

357

Indian descent. Some Latinos invoke the fact that mestizos [people of mixed Spanish and

Indian blood Mexicans] and Indians, founded Los Angeles along with descendants of

Africans.10 This origin story, advanced by leaders of the Chicano movement of the 1960s

and 70s, highlights the presence of a multiracial group of settlers. It also presents a legal

and primordial right to what they call “Aztlán,” or the lands of Northern Mexico that

were annexed by the U.S. as a result of the Mexican-American War.

As geographer Wendy Cheng (2013) writes, Latinos, and in particular Mexican

Americans, are constructed as both more and less American than Asians. Historically,

Mexicans have been simultaneously erased from the southern California landscape (along

with indigenous people) and fetishized via a Spanish colonial past. For instance, “in

municipal politics, white elites were able to dictate the terms of belonging, often

validating Spanish space as central to the identity of the area (though firmly relegated to

the past), while continuing to treat Asian space as perpetually foreign” (Cheng, 2013,

132).

Sociologists Albert Bergesen and Max Herman (1998) hypothesized that there

was a defensive, violent backlash by African Americans in South LA to the increasing in-

migration by non-Black minorities during the unrest. They found that, “controlling for

economic conditions and racial/ethnic composition, there is a significant association

between ethnic succession in neighborhoods (Latino and Asian in-migration and Black

out-migration) and riot violence” (1998, 39).11 They argue that when African Americans

comprised the residential majority and faced in-migrants themselves, they might have

become the initiators of backlash violence (1998, 52).

358

Accordingly, while contesting the typical analyses of the unrest as a White-Black or

Black-Korean conflict, my Latino interviewees said something similar to Gloria Alvarez’

assertion that “Latinos did not riot out of the verdict of Rodney King, rather their participation

was based primarily as opportunistic and a bridge of cultural division between Hispanics and

Blacks living in the area” (EGP News 4/26/2012).12 Some African Americans resent that Latinos

have displaced them as workers in key sectors. In addition, not only are they losing political

influence and control of major civil rights mechanisms to Latinos, they now see themselves

being displaced in the pecking order by the Asian community, in this case the Koreans. Thus, the

unrest was seen by African American interviewees as a resistance to the shifting racial

cartography before it was concerned with the indexing of racial status and entitlement in the field

of racial positions. The latter was a matter of political power and symbolic integration as well as

a socioeconomic indicator. However, some Latino interviewees admitted that even though they

now heavily populate the area that was once predominantly Black, interracial relations have

improved over time.

Such resistance to the shifting racial cartography continued. By 1998, African

Americans made up about 10 percent of the population in LA County, but held about a

quarter of the jobs in city government and a third of those in the county government.

African Americans had held three seats on the 15-member City Council since the 1960s

(Newsweek, November 21, 1994, 57). Three of the region’s representatives in Congress

were Black. This may have been the high point of Black political power in LA. The

newly-arrived Latino immigrants complained about the lack of access to municipal jobs

and leadership positions in local government, about staffing positions in the school

359

system and the content of the curriculum, and about police brutality in Compton, where

the chief and nearly all of the officers were Black (Newsweek, November 21, 1994, 57).

The Black-White binary racial framework is unable to account for significant

class-based realignments of the post-Civil Rights era, like what is portrayed in the Y

dimension of the model, demonstrating what Susan Koshy has called “stratified

minoritization” (2001, 155). In the post-Civil Rights era, Asian American-ness acquired a

very different inflection from before. Hailed as the model minority, Asian American

success was attributed to Asians’ unique cultural characteristics as well as “the increased

economic strength of Asia [including South Korea] and the greater interconnectedness

with and dependency of the U.S. on Asia” (Koshy 2001, 190). As Helen Jun (2011)

argues, during the unrest, Black Orientalism or Black stereotypes about Asians

interpreted “Asian labor, markets, and capital” both as signs of the American Dream and

as the fulfillment of yellow peril (100).

Racial Distance

Racial distance refers to how close each racial/ethnic group feels compared to other

groups. The social distance between Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans in this study reflects

the nature of their relationship: whether they will feel "close" to each other and why.

Social scientists have examined the shifting relationships between Whites, Blacks,

Latinos, and Asian Americans in various ways, often with mixed results. Bobo and

Hutchings (1996) found that both Blacks and Latinos feel more threatened by Asians than

by each other. This is more of an economic threat. In contrast, Henry and Sears (2002)

asserted that (according to Whites themselves), Whites were in the most conflict with

360

African Americans. However, Blacks felt that Latinos were the group with whom they

had the most conflict, listing street crime, especially gang violence, jobs and income, and

access to higher education as sources of racial conflict (Henry and Sears 2002).

Researchers have also found that Latinos’ relations with African Americans are

frequently characterized by competition for local resources such as jobs, housing,

educational opportunities, and political representation (Johnson and Oliver 1989;

McClain and Karnig 1990; Waldinger 1996). Several Latino respondents in this study

sensed Blacks’ feelings of hostility, territoriality, and view of them as cultural outsiders

and unwelcome interlopers in the competition for such limited resources. The animosity

that both Korean and Latino respondents felt from the Black community contributed to

their own hostility toward African Americans.

Other studies have shown that African Americans’ views of Latinos are more

favorable than those of Whites, and also more favorable of Latinos than Latinos’ views of

African Americans (Ribas 2016, 193). McClain et al. (2006) similarly found that Latinos

view Blacks less favorably than Blacks view Latinos. Moreover, Latinos hold more

negative views of Blacks than Whites do of Blacks (McClain et al. 2006). In addition,

Hernandez (2007) reported that Latinos preferred to maintain a social distance from

African Americans and listed them as their least desirable marriage partners. Finally,

Johnson, Farrell, and Guinn (1997) found that a large percentage of Latinos and a

majority of Asian Americans viewed Black people as less intelligent and more welfare-

dependent than their own groups.

There has been some critique of these studies as presenting analyses of immigrant

incorporation processes in a simplistic good-versus-bad framework, particularly in terms

361

of the quality of intergroup relations (Ribas 2016, 186). I agree with this assessment,

which is why I attempted to understand the conditions that motivated the prod, rather

than defining the relations between Korean immigrant merchants and their inner-city

customers as either good or bad. Equally important is the fact that the above studies tend

to ignore the overdetermining, if opaque, role of whiteness in the system of racialized

stratification. For this reason, sociologist Vanesa Ribas (2016) frames intergroup

relations among subordinated groups as “prismatic engagement,” wherein emergent

senses of group position are shaped through the “distorting optic of the prism” of white

dominance (199). One example of the continuing dominance of Whiteness is the finding

that Latinos feel greater discrimination from African Americans than from Whites (Ribas

2016, 196), and that some minorities feel closer to Whites than to other minorities: “the

power wielded by whites over others in American society is in some sense legitimate: at

worst an established fact one should accept with resignation, at best a prerogative to

which one can aspire” (Ribas 2016, 185). Perhaps Latinos know that an approximation to

Whiteness gives them greater social status. At the same time, they sense the lack of

economic power and social status possessed by Blacks.

Reframing the study of intergroup relations as prismatic engagement also

recognizes that the social system into which a group enters into is characterized by

positions of unequal status. In other words, viewed through the lens of prismatic

engagement, the process of belonging entails struggles over the positions that groups

occupy within the American stratified system. Workplaces, the market place, and

neighborhoods are key interactional arenas for the mutual construction of group identities

through boundary process, that is, to the emergent “structure of feeling” composed in part

362

by multivalent intermediating relationships between groups, which are again informed by

class, citizenship, history, and politics. This book sheds light on these dynamics, viewing

the incorporation of both Korean and Latino immigrants as a process of adjustment by

which groups both achieve and are ascribed social positions in a stratified system of

belonging.

As an alternative to more static cultural and biological theories of ethnic and

racial difference, Barth’s concept of “ethnic boundaries” has been frequently applied to

study ethnic and racial inequality (Lamont and Molnar 2002, 174). Thus, racial

minorities, as well as Whites, tend to draw symbolic boundaries to keep out other groups,

expressing varying views—from hostile to ambivalent to sympathetic—as they are

racialized by dimensions of class and politics of citizenship. In this study, it is not just

Blacks who are drawing symbolic boundaries against Korean and Latino immigrants.

Korean immigrant merchants also draw symbolic boundaries against Black and Latino

customers and residents, as they feel “racially alienated” from them and Whites (Bobo

and Hutchings 1996). For Latino immigrants, their class proximity to African Americans

and the imperatives of the rigid American racialization system created the conditions for

strong symbolic boundaries to be drawn between them. These symbolic boundaries

reflect social boundaries, as their symbolic boundaries are tied to these groups’ positions

within the social organization of labor/work, and to their emergent sense of group

position or politics of citizenship.

Racial minorities are placed in differential and unequal power relations to each

other. African Americans and Latinos generally feel closer to Whites than to each other

(Dyer et al. 1989, as cited in Barreto 2014, 207). Thus, for Blacks an affinity with

363

American Indians (I) was close, to Whites (W) more so than to Latinos (L), and they had

the least affinity with Asian Americans (A) in my model. Black interviewees viewed

Korean immigrants as more distant from them than Latinos. Reason for this distance

could be due to racial, cultural, and class barriers, or what I call “four degrees of

exclusion or segregation” in terms of race, class, culture, and citizenship (see previous

chapter) that exist among Korean merchants and their Black customers (see Chapters 2-

5). Korean immigrant merchants in Black neighborhoods came to represent a “social

crisis” of poverty in inner cities (Jun 2011, 109).

Black interviewees also believed that Korean immigrants were determined to rip

them off, an accusation that has also been launched at Arab American merchants in

Detroit. Blacks devalued the Korean family enterprise “not as an economic

accomplishment in the face of strong odds, but rather as an unearned opportunity at their

expense” (Johnson, Farrell and Guinn 1997, 1079). To make matters worse, “those

poverty-stricken former peasants won’t treat blacks with respect, and some of the Korean

immigrant merchants are fake white,” one interviewee stated. For African Americans,

Korean immigrant merchants appeared to be different culturally and physically, and they

reinforced images and stereotypes associated with nativist White sentiment. As indicated

in this model of racial cartography, African Americans viewed Korean Americans as

more distant from them than Whites. I should point out the irony in this, given that they

were physically closer to Koreans in terms of living, working, buying, etc. But they felt

more distant from Koreans even though they shared more daily encounters with them.

Ussery, a Black business owner, noted how minority people rank each other:

364

Whites rate all minorities below themselves, in all categories. But we should also ask the

question, how do minorities look at themselves? Minorities rate Blacks and Hispanics

about the same. Blacks rate themselves higher than Hispanics because they see Hispanics

as immigrants who come in, grab the entry-level jobs, and work as cheap labor; an unfair

misconception, no doubt. Asians rate themselves above Blacks and Hispanics, believing

that they work harder while Blacks are lazy and have no work ethic. Furthermore, Asians

who come to America do not consider themselves a minority. And that’s understandable

because they come from a monocultural society, where there is no racial distinction.

(Ussery 1994, 93)

Ussery emphasized that ethnic stratification is more complicated than what can be read from

socioeconomic indicators. He also reiterated the point that African Americans rate themselves

higher than other minorities in terms of social status, who are immigrants and read as non-

Americans.

Furthermore, although non-Korean owned stores in South LA were affected, Korean

business owners were disproportionately targeted during the unrest (Kim 2012, 17). They were

targeted because Blacks felt exploited by them and because the stores were in their

neighborhoods. A 37-year-old Chinese American grocery owner (1993) whose store was looted

confirmed anti-Asian sentiments and distance from his Black customers, saying that “If he were

a Korean, his store would be burnt”:

It is hard for immigrants, especially “Orientals” to do business because of culture and

communication. New faces aren’t treated well. We are lucky we have been here seven

years, but if we were new store owner we get kicked out, especially Asians. Afro-

365

Americans especially feel this way after the Soon Ja Du case. They feel that Orientals

come here make money and not respect them. I hear this from the customers often.

A good number of Black interviewees like the following 64-year-old female arts

coordinator for African American Community Based Organization (1996), who discussed her

shifting perspective before and after the riots, blamed Latinos as well as Blacks for the unrest:

“Latinos are just there, they did a lot of looting but we got all credit for it. Like this kid I saw, he

came out a store just holding up one shoe, what was he going to do with one shoe? But he had

it.”

A 32-year-old Black truck driver whose closest friends are White said, “Hatred towards

the verdict, racism jumped toward White folks and the police.” When asked to comment on his

perception of Koreans after the unrest in 1996, he quickly brought up Mexicans, unable to hide

his dislike for cholos13:

Koreans: Koreans are Korean, that’s them. I have nothing against anyone, I’m not racist.

No that’s not true…I hate cholos, Mexican gang bangers with their hair greased back. I

hate the way they talk, look, think and everything about them.

African Americans: No, they acted crazy and sick, there was no unity.

Whites: No, I have a love for Whites; two of my best friends are White.

Latinos: Mexican Americans like these [nods and says hello to a woman and her son

pushing a shopping cart and walking down the street] I have a love for these. But

Mexican Americans with tattoos and all that stuff I hate them.

In contrast to the above perspectives, a 27-year-old Black male program manager of an

African American community organization (1996) felt close to other racial groups, including

Whites: “My opinion of Whites is ever changing. [Why?] Because I saw them as deeper, I didn’t

366

before.” He meant that he saw how the tragedy impacted Whites as well. Regarding Latinos, he

stated, “That never changes, we always hung out in Texas, I have the ‘hey cholo what’s up’

attitude. I guess with Koreans too, with that one friend I had.” Incidentally, he was referring to

someone who might have been Chinese American.14

In contrast to the relative racial distance between Blacks and Koreans and Blacks and

Latinos, the greater closeness between Latino and Korean immigrants in the racial cartography

model reflects a slightly more positive relationship, or what I call “two degrees of exclusion or

segregation” in terms of class and culture and “two degrees of inclusion” in terms of race and

citizenship (see previous chapter). While African Americans indicated racial distance from both

Koreans and Latinos, Latinos also distanced themselves from African Americans. Like Korean

immigrants, Latinos have been subjected to less racism than African Americans. In addition, they

often bring negative, biased perceptions of Black people from their home countries; although

large Black populations are found in certain areas of Latin America, like Cuba and Brazil, this is

not the case for the majority of immigrants in South LA, who are from Mexico and Central

America. This partly explains the distance between the African American and Latino

communities in the aftermath of the unrest. African Americans’ grievances about immigrants

from Mexico and Central America centered almost exclusively on economic issues, such as

competition over community and school resources and jobs (Vargas 2006, 53). However, as

Vargas (2006) points out, cheap immigrant labor is not generally the cause of Black

unemployment, but rather another feature of exploitative capitalism that oppresses marginalized

communities (2006, 52).

If we think about racial distancing as reflecting patterns of residential segregation

or symbolic boundary reflecting social boundary, as sociologist Camille Charles (2007)

367

noted, as of 2000, Latino segregation from Whites in LA can be characterized as extreme,

similar to the situation between Blacks and Whites. Asians in LA remain moderately

segregated from Whites in terms of residential patterns. In contrast, Latinos and Asians

have experienced declining segregation from Blacks (2007, 43).

Post-Unrest Latino Racial Formation and Latino-Black Racial Distancing

Spanish-speaking Angelenos called the 1992 civil unrest los quemazones: the grand

burning. Initially, the Latino community was relieved to see that East LA, the historic

heart of Latino LA, remained relatively calm despite the region’s economic difficulties,

which were similar to those in South LA. East LA also had a history of often-tense

relations with law enforcement officials because of numerous allegations of police

brutality against Latinos. The early Latino reactions to the unrest turned out to be

incorrect: “Despite the fact that thousands of Mexican immigrants participated, they

blamed it on Salvadorans who are ‘refugees’ and not ‘real immigrants’ like Mexicans”

(Davis 1993, 146). Latinos living in South LA, Pico-Union, Koreatown, and other

areas—many of whom were poor Salvadoran immigrants, who, along with others,

engaged in extensive looting—both participated in and were deeply affected by the

unrest. Undocumented immigrants accounted for more than 1,200 of the 15,000 people

arrested (LAT 5/11/1992). On one occasion when 477 undocumented immigrants were

picked up and handed over to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), 360

were from Mexico, 62 from El Salvador, 35 from Guatemala, 14 from Honduras, 2 from

Jamaica, and the rest from other countries (LAT 5/11/1992).

368

The outburst of violence in areas with rapidly growing Latino populations caught

community leaders, and at least some elected officials, by surprise. However, the Latino

elected officials most likely realized that there was no common agenda for Eastside

Latinos, who were predominantly Mexican in origin and less recently immigrated or born

in the U.S., and their counterparts in South LA and Pico Union, who were more recent

Central American immigrants. Moreover, like many other residents of this region, some

working-class Latino citizens worried about increased competition in the labor market

from recent immigrants who were willing to settle for lower wages.

For the first time, immigrants from Central American countries were lumped

together with the Mexican American and Mexican immigrants, subject to pan-ethnic

racialization from the top, courtesy of the media, politicians, and other state agents. To

make matters worse, these new Latinos were seen negatively in terms of racial meaning.

In LA, a number of right-wing Republicans campaigning for office singled out Latino

immigrants (Davis 1993, 145), exploiting the media’s negative portrayal of them. They

proposed to stop immigration to the U.S.—in particular from Third World countries—

while reiterating that nearly one-third of the first 6,000 suspects arrested were “illegal

aliens” (National Review, June 22, 1992, 46).

After the unrest, repairing the gaps between Mexican Americans and Central

American immigrants and establishing an agenda for all Latinos in the LA area became a

major focus for many elected officials and nascent community organizations. While

Latinos did not appreciate the negative images of them as looters circulating in the media,

they also pointed out positive outcomes, such as more emphasis on political organizing

and efforts at forming a pan-Latino community. City Councilman Mike Hernandez,

369

elected by the district that includes Pico Union, was the first Latino elected official to set

up an assistance network; he also participated in the street clean-ups and authored a

proclamation in City Hall calling for an end to the INS raids.15

On May 4, LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina convened a group of about 25

Latino community leaders who formed the Latino Unity Coalition. Similarly, activist

Geraldine Zapata of Plaza Community Center, Professor Jorge Mancillas at the UCLA

School of Medicine, and other Latinos organized a June 1992 conference to address

social, economic, and political issues affecting Latinos; initiate the formation of a

federation of Latino groups; forge an agenda for action; and form the Latino Unity

Forum. While the Latino Unity Coalition and Latino Unity Forum did not last long,

another effort emerged on September 14, 1992: the Latino Coalition for a New Los

Angeles, numbering over 30 different organizations and representing a cross-section of

Latino political, social, and business leaders.16 As noted in the previous chapter, many

Latino-owned businesses, including taco carts, were affected along with Korean ones

during the unrest. Overall, the denial rate for the federal grant and loan programs that was

intended to serve victims of the unrest was 50 percent or higher. The rejection rate for

Latino immigrants ranged between 75 and 90 percent, higher than the average, suggesting

that a whole sector of the population was underserved by this relief effort (Pastor 1993,

28).

The Central American community responded to the unrest with its own

organizing efforts. El Rescate, originally established as a refugee center, organized a

Pico-Union Community Forum to solicit the neighborhood’s views on the rebuilding

process. Central American merchants joined a new association, the Unión de

370

Comerciantes Latinos, to ensure that emergency and long-term relief efforts also met

their needs. Before the unrest, these merchants’ main concern had been to end the war in

El Salvador and to stop illegal deportation. Central American communities also joined

the pan-Latino community in their efforts to be heard and participate in rebuilding efforts.

In July 1992, Latino office holders sent Mayor Tom Bradley a letter complaining that

Latinos were being excluded from rebuilding efforts, while asserting that African

American organizations had received disproportionate attention and post-riot aid due to

their stronger ties to City Hall and the media’s portrayal of the eruption as a Black vs.

White or Black vs. Korean conflict. They also emphasized that the founding members

and initial beneficiaries of corporate largesse via Rebuild L.A. (RLA) were Black

organizations.17 Finally, Latino leaders called on business and industry leaders to create

more job opportunities for Latinos (LAT 7/22/1992). Thus, for a brief period, the

distinctions between Mexican vs. Central American, Mexican vs. Salvadoran, Salvadoran

vs. Guatemalan, and Mexican vs. Oaxacan or Zapotec were set aside.

The pattern of ethnic succession in South LA revealed underlying tensions

between groups. The Black community of South LA regarded the incursion of Hispanics

as “threatening” (Morrison and Lowry 1994, 32). Indicating some evidence of this

conflict, in 1994, Black voters backed Proposition 187, which would have instituted a

screening system for citizenship as well as denied undocumented immigrants from using

“non-emergency health care, public education” and other state services.18 Some Black

voters were also against the enforcement of equal opportunity laws for Latinos in LA

(Barreto et al. 2014, 204). In 2001, African Americans uniformly voted against the Latino

mayoral candidate in Los Angeles. However, with the election in 2005 of Antonio

371

Villaraigosa, Black Angelenos joined his Latino, labor, Anglo-liberal base, suggesting a

return to coalitional politics in Los Angeles.

Another statistic that evidences Black-Latino conflict in LA is the fact that

African Americans and Latinos are the most frequent victims of hate crimes, and the

majority of Black victims were targeted by Latino suspects and vice versa (Los Angeles

County Commission on Human Relations 2008, 10). A Latino man targeted African

Americans in a spree of freeway shootings, and Florencia 13, a South LA Latino street

gang, was charged with waging a murderous campaign—two hundred killings in three

years—against rival African American gangs in their Florence-Firestone neighborhood,

which is now 90 percent Latino (Quinones 2014). The Mexican mafia at one point

ordered attacks on Black inmates from inside prison. The attacks were often efforts by

Latino gangs to control the drug market rather than out of racial hatred (Quinones 2014).

Rebuilding efforts after the unrest brought these conflicts to the fore. Of particular

interest were the conflicts that erupted between Latinos and African Americans over the

distribution of construction jobs and the allocation of rebuilding resources. The situation

was similar to that discussed by Mexicans in Chicago: “While plainly conscious of and

commonly outspoken about the racialized discrimination and injustice that confront them,

Mexican migrants in Chicago nonetheless have come to frequently articulate their

perspectives in the hegemonic idiom of U.S. racism against the African Americans who

often appear to be their most palpable competitors for jobs and space” (de Genova 2005,

141). Thus, encounters between African Americans and Latinos became tense after the

unrest, as illustrated by the heated exchange between Danny Bakewell (see Chapter 2),

leader of the Brotherhood Crusade, and Xavier Hermosillo, leader of the group News for

372

America. Bakewell demanded that job sites that had no Black workers be shut down, and

marched with a group of Black contractors to a nearby site and attempted to stop ongoing

demolition work. The incident resulted in Bakewell ordering a Latino worker off his

bulldozer, allegedly in pidgin Spanish (LAT, June 13, 1992).

In an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Xavier Hermosillo responded heatedly

by arguing that “[t]he Latino community will not tolerate, under any circumstances, the

assault on the rights of Latinos, Anglos, Asians or African Americans to work.

Bakewell’s actions smack of the same barbaric tactics employed by members of the Ku

Klux Klan in removing Blacks from work sites” (LAT, July 9, 1992). Hermosillo

organized “sting teams” of undercover construction workers with video cameras that

monitored work sites that employed Latino workers to record Bakewell’s efforts to

replace Latino workers with African Americans (Navarro 1993, 79). Unsurprisingly,

although Bakewell and Hermosillo were controversial figures in the Black and Latino

communities respectively, the mainstream media treated them as if they accurately

represented the opinions of each minority community.

It is important to emphasize that other community organizers acknowledged that

Black-Brown conflict was a systematic problem caused by economic disinvestment by

the public and private sectors in the inner cities, which contributed to the high

unemployment rates of young African American males and the perception that Latinos

were taking all the jobs (Villanueva 2017, 92).19 Such community organizations as LA

Black Workers Center and Redeemer Community organized campaigns targeting the city

government to enact a living wage policy and demanded environmental protections from

373

fracking by private oil companies in the area, which would benefit both Black and Latino

workers.

In a recently published book, Black and Brown in Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict

and Coalition (2014), Josh Kun and Laura Pulido urge us to move beyond the typical,

teleological framing of “conflict” and “coalition”: “Black LA and Brown LA coexist as

much as they battle and see each other in the mirror as much as they refuse to look” (3).

As they remind readers, in the late 1960s, both groups began seeing each other as

potential partners and competitors, as was exemplified by the collaboration between the

Black Panther Party and the Brown Berets. However, in the context of the post-Civil

Rights Movement, as mentioned earlier, Blacks and Latinos clashed over educational

resources, political power, and access to labor and employment. After the 1992 unrest,

the relationship between the two groups, while initially fraught and discordant, has

improved over time, as will be discussed below.

Racial Tension and Unrest via South LA Racial Cartography

In South LA, racial distance is relative and relational, so the position of each locus and arc can be

mapped in Figure 9.3.

{Insert Figure 9.3 near here}

My South LA racial cartography indicates lower racial positions for Latinos (mostly

Mexicans and Salvadoran) than for African Americans and Koreans. Asian Americans

are in a relatively high position, not including Whites, who are at the top of the hierarchy.

Armando Navarro (1993) lamented the predicament of Latinos in South LA, which he

felt were relegated to a quasi-“South African syndrome” status, in that they constituted

374

the majority of the population, yet did not hold any economic or political power (81). As

for interviewees’ perceived economic position vis-à-vis Blacks, while Korean immigrant

business owners clearly saw Black and Latino customers and residents as economically

disadvantaged relative to themselves, Latinos perceived little or no difference between

themselves and Blacks; in fact, they tended to perceive Blacks as slightly better off than

themselves.

The post-unrest South LA cartography illuminates some characteristics of the

contemporary multiracial situation. In their analysis of the causes of the unrest, both

Black and Latino interviewees agreed on the importance of racism as a causal structure.

Thus, they referred to police brutality and the racialized criminal justice system, as seen

in the Rodney King verdict, and continued institutional racism. As Gerald Horne (2001)

asserted, “The virulence of racism in Los Angeles, a crude mixture of the Wild West and

the Old South, reached its zenith in the LAPD…Between 1975 and 1982, for example,

sixteen Angelinos died as a result of LAPD officers’ use of choke holds and other tactics

of restraint; twelve of those were black” (391).

Notwithstanding this agreement between Blacks and Latinos, the two groups

disagreed on who were the victims of racism and who were the victimizers. Many Black

interviewees spoke about the history of White racism and the central significance of

Black-Korean tensions. In particular, they spoke about the controversial verdict in the

Du-Harlins case as one of the catalysts for the looting and aggression toward Korean

Americans. The majority of Black interviewees thought that tension already existed, and

that while the Rodney King verdict was the most immediate cause for the unrest, the

tensions had been latent for a long time. African Americans connected the Du verdict to

375

that of Rodney King, feeling that neither she nor the White police officers were properly

prosecuted, while Black men were facing high rates of incarceration. As discussed in

Chapter 2, Black interviewees felt that Judge Karlin’s sentence sent the message that

“Black life is worthless.”

Individual experiences also greatly influenced reasoning in regard to the 1992

unrest, and each answer correlated with the greatest obstacle a given informant faced. A

27-year-old Black male program manager (1996) advocated for recycling Black dollars

as a solution to inner-city problems, alluding to the popular Black capitalist ideology of

self-help and a commitment to giving back:

I call it the LA rebellion. Why? It was a result of racism and discrimination across

the board, and unfortunately Koreans were victims of victimization. We’ll have to

think about what caused the influx of Koreans. Whose place did they take? It was

all about economics, discrimination, banks’ red-lining…They learned that our

dollars were just as green as everybody else’s, so the dollars went out of the

community…Since they were here, we bought the goods. They don’t share the

same goals, familiarity, and commitments to the community.

As discussed in Chapter 1, this vision of civic and community-minded Black capitalism is

an updated version of the Black nationalism advocated by Garveyites of 1920s Los

Angeles, who envisioned that Black-owned businesses would hire African Americans

and provide useful services to Black consumers.

A 64-year-old Black female (1996), an art director for a community organization,

also gave Latasha Harlins as the reason (see Chapter 2)20:

376

It was because of Latasha Harlins, that Korean lady getting freed. Nobody outside

of Los Angeles heard about that. It had nothing to do with (Rodney King); it was

the straw that broke the camel’s back. I mean she was walking out and the woman

shot her in the back, as she was leaving. I don’t buy that shit, she couldn’t handle

it. It really makes me mad. [Talking about Latasha Harlins seemed to emotionally

affect her, and her voice tone changed]

Despite her strong feelings concerning the Du/Harlins incident, she felt an affinity to

Korean shopkeepers, telling one that she was glad they were rebuilding. A 20-year-old

Black male (1993) made similar comments on the unrest.

The girl getting shot and the lady just getting probation, the Mike Tyson thing,21

prejudice against everybody. Koreans and Whites are scared of Blacks. They expect any

Black person to rob them. If they’re going to open a store in a Black community, they

shouldn’t act like that. They try to act nice but you can tell it’s fake. They come towards

you and say ‘hi’ and ‘have a nice day’ too quickly.

Similar sentiments were presented by an African American man who participated in attacks upon

Korean stores: “The riots were not riots at all, but a rebellion aimed at throwing off perceived

economic and social oppression…we wanted to hurt [Koreans] physically, economically, raise

their insurance rates – anything we could for payback” (Christian Science Monitor April 29,

2002).

Many African Americans felt that outsiders—Latinos, Jews, and especially Koreans—

controlled too much of the retail landscape in South LA. As a result, when these symbols of their

own diminished control and limited retail options went up in smoke in the spring of 1992, some

felt vindicated: “Maybe it had to burn….like how sometimes you have to burn a field. To make

377

something new” (Simon 2011, 45). For other African American interviewees, Latasha Harlins

was not the only symbol of injustice that catalyzed the protest. An 18-year-old UCLA student

(1993) believed that the cause was police brutality.

The officers, people were fed up with the way the police treat minorities and fed up with

the police getting away with bullshit. My uncle got killed by a cop in the street. There are

so many unreported cases of police brutality. Prejudice, they think we’re all in a gang and

they were tired of the police getting away with everything especially when it’s on

videotape.

A 25-year-old Black male on unemployment disability (1996) lost pay because he could

not get to work during the unrest.

I guess…I know there was a verdict, the Rodney King case verdict, and then it all

happened….Anger about daily living, the struggles of life. It shocked me to hear about it.

You hear about wars, like the Korean War, but when you experience them it makes you

think.

(What do you mean?)

Like the Gulf War shocked me. Nowadays, in this period people should get along. Seems

that experiences of the past, people should build on it.

He also thought that the unrest brought African Americans closer and that Black-on-Black crime

was reduced: “It was a wake-up call; people realized Black-on-Black crime is not good.”

A 58-year-old Black liquor store owner (1993) felt that multiple factors were responsible

for the unrest:

I believe that the crisis happened because of a lot of hopelessness and drugs. Young

people, it seems to me like they don’t have anything to lose anymore. No matter what

378

race and ethnicity, young people today don’t seem to care. The economy and jobs play a

major role in this problem.

He also felt that class differences played a role: “When you are poor and you are locked in and

you’re seeing all these goodies around you and you want to get that quick, no patience. That’s

why you have a lot of drug problems.” While he felt sure that race also played a major factor, he

stated,

But that’s no 100 percent excuse. Some people are strong and can handle pressures and

those people survive. I’ve seen some brilliant minds go down because of prejudices. They

just go down, give up. I’ve seen not-so-brilliant minds say, I’m going to make it anyway.

But everyone doesn’t do and think like that.

Unlike interviews with Korean merchants (see Chapter 6), damage was not a common

topic of discussion in the interviews with African Americans. Informants mentioned personal

acquaintances that lost jobs or businesses, but also acknowledged that they had rebuilt and were

moving on. Most concluded that “collective violence pays off” (Murty et al. 1994) and that there

were positive results of the unrest. They often empathized with unrest participants, recognizing

flaws in the system and the need for change. All saw the Rodney King beating as an exaggerated

example of routine police violence against Blacks in South LA, and were outraged and saddened

by this event. It prompted them to think of what it means to be Black in the U.S., to occupy the

lowest stratum of the racial order (Hunt 1997, 78). Black participants in the riot presented

themselves as “worthy protesters and freedom fighters” (Murty et al. 1994). Other Black

interviewees did not think the King verdict was the primary cause of the unrest. Some brought up

the issue of institutional racism by the police and financial institutions or a long series of socio-

379

economic frustrations (e.g., poverty and despair) in the African American community as the

underlying cause.

After the unrest, my Black interviewees assessed: “Efforts were made to build

community relations [between Koreans and African Americans]”; “They [Koreans]

became aware that they were in a community that they needed to try more.”: “Brought

them [African Americans] closer, Black on Black crime was cut down, it was a wake-up

call.” On the whole, for Blacks, the unrest seemed to be perceived as an outlet for societal

woes which did not do much harm, or would somehow improve things or cause positive

changes in their community.

Unlike Black participants, Latino interviewees interpreted the unrest as an

example of Black rage against Asians, Latinos, and Whites, even while identifying its

causes in racism, capitalism, and the negative impact of economic restructuring. Looking

at the riot victims at the corner of Florence and Normandie, George Sanchez (1997)

suggested that the unrest was “an anti-immigrant spectacle from [the] very beginning,” an

outpouring of resentment against increasing Latino and Asian immigrants in Black

neighborhoods (1010). Sanchez noted that young Black Americans were heard saying

that Latinos and Asians had invaded their territory, and that they would let Latinos go but

teach Koreans who ruled the neighborhood. Koreans “stood out as an easy target”

because of a “Pacific Rim global economy” which was bringing change to LA as well as

wealth for some new Asian immigrants.22 At Florence and Normandie, while Black

motorists appeared to pass without incident, others were attacked. Although the case of

Reginald Denny, a White truck driver, was much publicized in the media, he was not the

only person injured on that corner. One teenage girl exclaimed that a Japanese motorist,

380

Takao Hirata, deserved to be injured as payback for the death of Latasha Harlins, calling

him a “Korean motherfucker” (Alan-Williams 1994, 91, quoted in Watts 2010, 214).

Of a total 5,633 persons arrested during the unrest, Latinos constituted 50.6%

whereas African Americans comprised only 36.2% and 72% of arrests for curfew

violations and property crimes (i.e., looting) (Pastor 1995, 239). Different motivations

have been attributed to all of the participants, and different modes of participation

mattered, whether they entailed participation in burning or looting, active or passive

participation, and early or late participation. While some Black interviewees and

commentators attributed the violence to Latino or Mexican participation, often invoking

the number of Latino participants, Mexican interviewees and commentators attributed it

to Black or Salvadoran participation and carefully distinguished Latino participation from

Black participation. Hayes-Bautista et al. (1993) suggested a collective behavior

approach in understanding Latino collective behavior: “Latino involvement is explained

more by the fact of breakdown in municipal order than by anything else” (446). Thus, for

many Latino interviewees, Latino participation in the unrest was not about anger, but

more about opportunity. It was not until the third or fourth day, when the people could

not get food or other things they needed due to the curfew, that Latinos became involved

in the looting. Accordingly, economist Manuel Pastor (1995) claimed that working-poor

Latinos participated because of deep frustrations with the persistent economic inequality

they saw in their neighborhoods, while the African American response was more closely

tied to police-community relations. Some Latinos looted because the opportunity

presented itself; some looted because they saw the chance to obtain an item they desired

or needed. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Latinos generally were not protesting

381

the Rodney King verdict, and many were opposed altogether to the looting and arson,

arguing that this response was not justified and would cause more problems in the long

run, shaming the larger Latino community.23

For other Latino interviewees, the events represented participants’ only “opportunity for

oppressed people to be heard by the power structure” (Hunt 1997, 75, 76). They speculated that

Latinos participated in the unrest with the same motivation as African Americans: protesting

racist and classist treatment of Latinos and African Americans by the larger White society. One

indicated, “Man [store owner] is rich and we’re poor.” In many ways, Latinos were subjected to

similar racial and economic conditions as Blacks, including unfair treatment by the LAPD and

law enforcement. When a Los Angeles Times reporter approached one group of Latino workers

who gathered every morning to look for work near the ruins of a construction supply store on

Pico Boulevard, some of the men responded with threats. One lobbed a small rock. One shouted,

“Next time, bring us some food!” (April 21, 1997).

In short, the interpretation of the unrest as primarily a matter of Black-Korean tension,

the Rodney King beating, or Black-Brown tension was not supported by interviewees. Instead,

residents were likely to link the events to broader structural formations and a history of racial and

economic marginalization rather than to the acquittal of the four White police officers.2425

Although initially the motive of the rioters was attributed to racial tension, now they are

considered one factor in a larger status quo conflict. If one looks at the situation and the parties

more closely, however, this superficial appearance of White-Black and Korean-Black racial

tension veils a class struggle, reminiscent of how Marx (1972 (1954), 49) interpreted the events

leading to the coup d’état of “Napoleon the Little” on December 2, 1851. The petite bourgeoisie

did not feel sufficiently rewarded after the June Revolution of 1848, feeling that their material

382

interests had been imperiled and that democratic guarantees had been undermined by the

counter-revolution. Similarly, Korean immigrant merchants during the unrest were abandoned to

defend themselves, by state apparatuses, such as the police and government officials. The

Revolutions of 1848 were led by an ad hoc coalition of reformers, the middle classes, and

workers, which did not hold together for long. After the coup d’état, the peasants, whose

interests were no longer in accord with, but in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie,

found their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task was to overthrow the

bourgeoisie order (Marx 1972 (1954), 128). Likewise, Latino workers came to join the unrest as

allies to African American residents.26

The massive and rapid residential demographic change occurred in the wake of the riots.

Between 1970 and 1990 the South LA area went from 80% Black and 9% Latino to 50.3% Black

and 44% Latino (Grant, David M. et al. 1996). In the 2010 census, the area of South Los Angeles

had a population of about 768,456. 64.0% of the residents were Hispanic or Latino; nearly

31.4% were African American.27

The majority of residents of South LA, like the rest of Angelenos, feel the city’s

economic situation has significantly worsened. The condition in South L.A. is still dismal. South

LA and other neighborhoods whose residents had a per capita income of less than $14,000 per

year had the lowest income in the city. The per capita income of residents in affluent

neighborhoods on the West side is 12 times higher than that of South LA residents (Los Angeles

County Department of Public Health 2013). In 2010, South LA had the highest rates of

unemployment in the city at 13% (the city’s average was 9.2%), and of people living below the

Federal Poverty Level (FPL), 30% (as compared with the city average of 19%) (Los Angeles

County Department of Public Health 2013). The percentage of people over age 25 who did not

383

graduate high school in South LA was over 50%, according to 2010 U.S. Census, while it was

26% for the city overall. Finally, on average, 30% of the population aged 25 and older in LA had

a bachelor’s degree, while the rate was 10% in South LA (Los Angeles County Department of

Public Health 2013).

In general, after the unrest, about 100,000 jobs were lost and only 26,000 were generated

through subsequent policies. Moreover, 60% of the new jobs went to non-Hispanic Whites, even

though African Americans, Latinos, and Asians suffered 85% of the job loss (Spencer 2004, 98).

De facto housing segregation remains the rule, setting South LA apart from the rest of the city.

Only 23 percent of the commercial buildings destroyed by the riots are back in business (Dreier

2003, 36); the majority of local stores were never rebuilt.28 South LA after the unrest was

characterized by even fewer supermarkets29 and sit-down restaurants per capita than the rest of

LA and suburban America, even though issues of retail justice and equity were one of the main

topics of the 1992 unrest.

From Bipolar to Multipolar

Racial minorities may become a numeric majority in the U.S., and the Latino population

is expected to increase to an estimated 128 million, or 29 percent of the country, by 2050.

The Black/White binary that defined race relations for centuries has evolved due to the

influx of different minority groups and the ways they are racialized (Koshy 2008, 1548). I

have argued that inequalities in power, privilege, and rights/entitlements should be a part

of the discussion on racial difference. This case study has examined how multiple

racial/ethnic groups view one another and themselves in post-unrest Los Angeles. The

post-unrest racial cartography of LA signals the future of race relations nationally:

multipolar racial formation, race acting (e.g., acting White), and subaltern racism are all

384

influenced by class inequality and immigrant/citizenship status.30 The present race

relations in the U.S. are characterized by the complex interweaving of racial, class, and

citizenship categories, making it hard to separate race from class as the predominant

marker of differentiation.

First, immigrants from Asia and Latin America have been subject to differential

racialization from Blacks and from each other, from both the state and civil society. In

Omi and Winant’s formulation, racial projects by the state form the basis for individual

and collective identity formation, and at the same time become the site for political

struggle between racially based social movements and the racial state, as seen in the

Latino community. Lack of protection of Korean immigrants’ property and citizenship

rights led to the racialization of Korean immigrants and their children.31 Koreans became

a stand-in for all Asian Americans during the unrest—just as Mexicans or Salvadorans

did for Latinos—and were subject to racialization. Although less visible than the case of

Latino immigrants, Asian immigrants underwent a similar pan-ethnic racialization or

racial interpellation, as seen in the formation of pan-ethnic Asian American community

organizations.32

“Latinos are both potentially white and ‘others’” (Sawyer 2010, 532). As discussed in

previous chapter, more than half of Latinos identified as White in the 2010 Censuses, often “as a

strategy for countering discrimination in the early twentieth century” (Pulido and Pastor 2013,

311). For instance, the ethnic Mexican population identified as 52.8 percent White and 39.5

percent SOR (Some Other Race), although Central Americans, largely Salvadorans and

Guatemalans, were more likely to identify as SOR than as White (Pulido and Pastor 2013, 315).

Latinos have not been always treated as White, but often as non-White racialized people with

385

undesirable characteristics that make them “unassimilable” (Sawyer 2008, 43). Like Ong’s

(2003) poor Cambodian refugees, Latino immigrants in South LA were “Blackened” because

their socioeconomic indicators were worse than those of African Americans, making them easier

to exploit. Latinos are more likely to be poor than their Black neighbors who live in the same

area, and Blacks have a much higher rate of high school graduation (Pastor 1993).

Second, it should be noted that White and Black roles were not limited to White and

Black racial groups. In the context of the post-Civil Rights era, different racial minorities are

relegated to White/Black racial roles. Thus, Korean immigrants were viewed as surrogate Whites

without the White privilege (Park 1996). Some African Americans, like nativist White

Americans, also played a similar surrogate White role in responding to immigrant spatial and

economic prominence,33 in particular the entrepreneurial presence of Korean business owners,

and supporting anti-immigrant policies such as California’s Proposition 187 (which was later

challenged and found unconstitutional by a federal court), and the federal Workfare bill. In

Leimert Park, a traditionally Black neighborhood in South LA, a group called Choose Black

America, launched and financially supported by the Federation for American Immigration

Reform, a hate group with ties to white supremacist groups led a march against illegal

immigration in South LA.34 However, it should be noted that African Americans have not been

the principal sponsors of exclusionary immigration legislation or the promulgators of anti-

immigrant movements (Ribas 2016, 193).35

Unlike White racism, Black racism is not backed up by power, although ideological

racism is still attached. Unfortunately, this “race acting” tends to produce charges of “subaltern

racism” among racial minorities.36 In other words, racial minorities are not immune from the

386

vices of prejudice and bigotry. Activist and scholar Andrea Smith self-critically states that people

of color are “victims of white supremacy, but complicit in it as well” (2006, 69).

Third, we note here post-unrest cross-racial class formation, in particular immigrant and

labor organizing, as discussed in the previous chapter. Bobo and his colleagues’ (2001)

demographic findings call our attention to the semi-permanent formation of a multi-racial

working-class coalition in various ways. Employment trajectories demonstrate that Black, Asian,

and Latino workers tend to be relegated to low-skill positions while other ethnic groups such as

Indians and Iranians acquire high-skill IT jobs (2001, 30-32). Also, except for Koreans, ethnic

economies (such as food service and retail trade) are not linked to upward social mobility and do

not offer protected economic niches. Immigrant and labor organizing often cuts across racial and

ethnic boundaries, involving coalitions between Latinos and Korean/Asian Americans, as

discussed in the previous chapter, and between Latinos and African Americans.37 A radicalized,

largely immigrant population engaged in strikes, boycotts, and street theater. This multiracial

movement emerged out of a series of concrete campaigns focusing on the struggles of the

working poor, an expansive living-wage campaign, union drives among home care workers and

janitors, and the fight for affordable public transportation, spearheaded by the Bus Riders Union.

Overall, in the mid-late 1990s, Los Angeles became the epicenter of labor

organizing, particularly by Latino immigrant workers (Milkman as cited in Bonacich et

al. 2010, 369). With the support of the public, media, public officials, clergy, and

foundations, unions won better contracts for janitors, drywall workers, chambermaids,

homecare and nursing home workers, municipal workers, social workers, librarians, and

leisure industry employees, among others (Laslett 2012). The Justice for Janitors

campaign organized a strike and a June 1990 demonstration in Central City, which drew

387

an attack by police. However, the strike resulted in an unprecedented 25 percent increase

in wages over a three-year period. In 1997, the revitalized union movement pushed the

City Council to pass a living wage law (requiring firms with city contracts to pay decent

wages and provide health benefits) over the opposition of Mayor Riordan and the

Chamber of Commerce (Dreier 2003, 42). In 1999, more than 75,000 home health care

aides won an organizing effort led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),

which was the largest union victory in the country in more than 30 years (Dreier 2003,

42).

In 2002, the city’s unions and anti-sweatshop activists (including clergy and

college students) celebrated a victory when UNITE, the garment workers union, signed a

contract with SweatX, a new local firm, to produce “sweat-free” clothing, backed by a

foundation headed by the cofounder of Ben & Jerry. The United Food and Commercial

Workers mounted a successful campaign among workers for Gigante, the Mexico-based

chain of supermarkets (Dreier 2003, 42). Equally important, the Los Angeles Federation

of Labor sought out strategies that would bring Black and Latino Angelenos together,

while allying with African Americans and using their civil rights tradition of struggle

against powerful elites for the cause of workers’ rights (Bonacich et al. 2010, 369). South

LA’s Community Coalition, discussed in Ch. 7, convinced the Los Angeles Unified

School District to redirect funds to repair dilapidated school buildings in the city’s

poorest areas. The Bus Riders Union forced the Metropolitan Transit Authority to buy

new buses and keep bus fares down. Action for Grassroots Empowerment and

Neighborhood Development Alternatives (AGENDA) mobilized residents to challenge

the city’s federally funded job training program so that unskilled residents would be

388

trained for work in industries with career leaders. In addition, communities for a Better

Environment defeated Sunlaw Energy Partners’ plan to build a massive 550-megawatt

power plant in South Gate, a predominantly Latino working-class city east of South LA

(Dreier 2003, 42).

The Labor/Community Strategy Center, the Strategic Concepts in Organizing and

Policy Education, and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy have not only

sought to foster class consciousness, but also prioritized the cultivation of interracial

unity at the center of their political work (Pastor 2014, 56). For instance, the County

Federation looked to groom African American leaders, raise the minimum wage, and

reserve spots for African American workers in the sectors of building trades, janitorial

services, and hotel employees. Special efforts were made to ensure that African

Americans would not be left behind. The SEIU launched the Five Days for Freedom

campaign to sign up thousands of licensed security guards—a sector that is 70 percent

African Americans in the region—for union membership (Pastor 2014, 57). Similarly,

UNITE-HERE! Local 11 used collective bargaining to ensure that African American

workers were hired by the hotel industry. Labor unions wielded enormous political

influence, culminating in the election of Latino Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has

deep roots in the progressive community, and pushed “the entire center of political

gravity of California to the left” (Laslett 2012, 313).

This cultivation of interracial unity is particularly important in South LA given

its deep history of racial justice and civil rights struggles, particularly within the African

American population. In light of the current demographic shift in South LA and rise in

the Latino population, organizers such as Community Coalition felt that “they needed to

389

embrace the changes but recognize the history of African American civil rights and social

justice struggles” (Villanuerva 2017, 85). This cross-racial coalition focused on labor,

class, and civil rights issues cannot be explained by a simple perspective of “racial

formation”; rather, it must be informed by “racial and class formation.”

Conclusion

The media portrayal of Black-Korean tensions in South LA during and after the unrest

was overly simplistic: a battle between African Americans versus Koreans concentrated

around the liquor stores of South LA. My research indicated this was not an accurate

depiction, and that the “us versus them” mentality presented in the media was distorted.

There are a number of factors that respondents spoke about and that some of them echo

what the media was saying. The media’s fixation on ethnic conflict seems to be related to

“an attempt to portray all groups, and not just Whites, as having to overcome prejudice,”

and shifting the focus from racist structures to racist attitudes (Pastor 2014, 34).38

Community members are not always reiterating what the media has fed them about their

own community. Instead, they are assessing the situation based upon their own individual

experiences. Thus, in theory, Korean merchants have the power to control their own

destiny. If they are able to establish a rapport with customers, relations may become

better.

My research on African Americans’ and Latinos’ discussion of unrest led me to

conceive of a multi-tiered racial cartography, which exhibits stratified minoritization with

the unrest as the contestation of a hegemonic hierarchy involving Whites, Asian

Americans, African Americans, and Latinos in South LA. This White-Asian-Black-

390

Latino formula constitutes a new four-race framework,39 with American Indians as the

fifth race (although they are often not mentioned as such in Los Angeles).40

Since the 1980s, the state-initiated racial categorization of Latinos and Asian

Americans has expanded the conventional White/Black bipolar racial framework to a

four-tiered model. Although this four-tiered racial classification itself does not inherently

imply a hierarchy, a racial hierarchy is indeed present. Although multiculturalism is often

presented as a positive alternative to white supremacy, it is still “governed by a normative

logic that is racialized, classed, and gendered” (Jun 2011, 127). Now this four-tiered

racial classification intersects with class structure, and the four racial groups find

themselves fighting for higher status. Although this new system was introduced to avoid

racial polarization and used for the purpose of convenient governing, the groups involved

are separated by alleged racial traits that serve as markers of privilege or subordination.

Groups identified as different races tend to live separately, are ranked differently in the

hierarchies of status and wealth, and view each other in zero sum game.

In this hegemonic multi-tiered racial cartography, Whites are at the top and African

Americans are still at the bottom. In between, two intermediate racial categories are positioned in

a liminal state. As seen in this study, while Whites and African Americans are assumed to have

full citizenship, Latinos’ and Asians’ political rights and legitimacy are contested. Different races

can occupy the role of Whites; they are still racialized by their bodies even if they have

economic power!

This book has documented how interracial relationships and tensions between Blacks and

Koreans and Latinos and Koreans involve interplay of race, class, culture, and citizenship.

391

The Black-White framing of race issues must be replaced with a fuller, more differentiated

multipolar understanding of a multiracial, multiethnic society divided along the lines of race,

class, citizenship, culture, and other axes. The book has examined how these relationships led to

a particular conflict, the 1992 Los Angeles unrest. Finally, it explored how these relationships

changed in the aftermath, and charted a racial cartography to depict the relative position of

Whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Koreans. The post-unrest racial cartography of LA is

intended to reflect a more recent multipolar racial formation, and the Latinization of South LA.41

The future of race relations in the U.S. will be characterized by the complex interweaving of

racial, class, and citizenship categories, making it hard to separate race from class as the

predominant marker of differentiation. Perhaps what is most important to note, however, is that

despite reduced racial tension42 and a modicum of economic growth, the very structural

conditions that involve race, class, culture, and citizenship and that led to the conflict have not

changed. The conditions in South L.A. is still dismal.43 Young, unarmed African Americans such

as Ezell Ford in South LA are frequently killed by police. Therefore, another similar unrest could

happen again.

392

1 I haven’t spoken much about Whites as a population group; instead I discussed White-dominated institutions. 2 The notion of racial hierarchy refers to “the social structural order produced by white racism” (Kim 2004, 997). 3 Kevin Lynch's idea (1960) was fundamentally geospatial: the idea that people's mental maps were based on the experience of moving through space, their interests in particular places, and their dependence on landmarks, which did not conform to formal maps. 4 There are other dimensions that affect a group’s social status, rights/entitlements, and treatment by others. These may include geopolitics between the U.S. and country of origin, media images, religious differences, role in U.S. economy, etc. 5 https://www.yahoo.com/news/romneys-comments-ripple-across-battleground-map-203832949--election.html 6 I made a decision not to include indigenous people in my four-fold racial analysis. Their numbers aren’t big enough in LA for me to warrant including them 7 1776 differentiates these immigrants becoming citizens after 1776 from earlier ones, who came to the U.S. when it was not yet an independent country. 8 The term, Asian American is just as problematic, perhaps more so, than Latino as the term lumps together a large geographic area with different languages, etc. 9 Regional racial cartography may replicate a national one, but also may diverge. 10Mason, William M. 2004. Los Angeles Under the Spanish Flag: Spain's New World. Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society, 2004. 11 Such defensive backlash was not exclusive to African Americans. Violence occurred against Irish immigrants in the 1840s, against new arrivals from Europe at the turn of the century, against Black in-migrants from the South early in this century, and now against the newest wave of immigrants, Latinos and Asians (Bergesen and Herman 1998). 12 Gloria Alvarez. “20 Years Ago: For Many Latinos, the L.A. Riots Were Not About Outrage.” Eastern Group Publications, April 26, 2012. http://egpnews.com/2012/04/20-years-ago-for-many-latinos-the-l-a-riots-were-not- about-outrage, accessed on August 8, 2017. 13 Cholo is a loosely defined Spanish term that has had various meanings. Its origin is a somewhat derogatory term for mixed-blood descendants in the Spanish Empire in Latin America and its successor states. Although Cholo can signify anything from its original sense as mestizo (a person of mixed European and Amerindian descent), in the United States, it refers to a Mexican-American youth who belongs to a street gang or person who dresses in the manner of a certain subculture. 14 He told me that he didn’t know ethnicity. 15 Rainey, J. (1993, Mar 01). Mixed reviews for council's newest voices government: While Mark Ridley-Thomas is widely praised at city hall, Mike Hernandez and Rita Walters have had their share of struggles. Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/282002260?accountid=14512 16 A diverse group of organizations, including the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN), the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), and La Unión de Comerciantes Latinos y Afiliados, formed the Latino Coalition in the summer of 1992 (LAT, May 29, 1993). 17 The Rebuilding LA program was top-down in its structure and program. Its ninety-four board members included a wide spectrum of business, government, civic, religious, and celebrity names, but it had no organic connection to the riot-torn neighborhoods (Dreier 2003, 40). 18 Alvarez, R. Michael, and Tara L. Butterfield. "The Resurgence of Nativism in California? The Case of Proposition 187 and Illegal Immigration." Social Science Quarterly 81, no. 1 (2000): 167-79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42864374. 19 George Villanueva (2017) documented fifteen community organizers’ efforts to make South LA more just, challenging the mainstream stigmatization of the area. 20 I went over this in detail in early chapters: Black perspectives that the Harlins case was a catalyst for the looting/riots. 21 Interviewees often invoked the Mike Tyson case in order to make the point that a Black man like Tyson would always be convicted, unlike the White police officers who beat King brutally in 1992. Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson became notorious for his controversial behavior both inside and outside the ring, and was arrested in July 1991 for the rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington, Miss Black Rhode Island, in an Indianapolis hotel room. He was convicted on the rape charge and was sentenced to six years in prison followed by four years on probation.

393

Shipp, E. R. (March 27, 1992). "Tyson Gets 6-Year Prison Term For Rape Conviction in Indiana". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/27/sports/tyson-gets-6-year-prison-term-for-rape-conviction-in- indiana.html?pagewanted=all 22 Asian Americans and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots/Uprising. Shelley S. Lee American History: Oxford Research Encyclopedias. http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore- 9780199329175-e-15, accessed on November 23, 2015. 23 Darnell Hunt (1997) reported similar Latino perspectives on the unrest. 24 In response, during the June election of 1992, voters passed Charter Amendment F, which limited police chiefs to two five-year terms and set up a mechanism for more civilian review of officer misconduct. 25 There were a host of different reasons and perspectives on what caused the unrest, though. 26 I am speaking about racialized subjects – class is not the only factor here, as it was with Marx’s example. 27 "South L.A.", Mapping L.A. website of the Los Angeles Times. http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/region/south-la/, accessed on January 29, 2018. 28 McDonald, Patrick Range and Ted Soqui. "Then & Now: Images from the same spot as the L.A. riots, 20 years later". LA weekly. http://www.laweekly.com/microsites/la-riots, accessed on August 8, 2017. 29 There is now one less chain supermarket in the riot neighborhoods than in the 1992 (Dreier 2003, 41). 30 Work on Latinos and African Americans in LA say little about multipolar relations. For instance, a recently published anthology, Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities (2010), edited by Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, did not include a chapter on interracial relations. Works on Latinos tend to include such discussion, as seen in Kun and Pulido (2014), but it is limited to the relationship between Latinos and African Americans. 31 Koreans were already racialized before the unrest. 32 The Asian American identity stemmed from movements in 60s/70s. 33 Reinforcing nativist rhetoric does not necessarily mean they can inhabit Whiteness, even temporarily. The burden of skin color is too great. It’s different for Koreans, who were economically privileged and thus held power over Blacks/Latinos. 34 “The compañeros have taken all the housing. If you don’t speak Spanish they turn you down for jobs. Our children are jumped upon in the schools. They are trying to drive us out” (LAT, August 17, 2013). 35 I don’t think I can use an outlier example like this group to argue that Blacks have been able to occupy a White role. 36 The word subaltern, as Gramsci calls it, refers to “the emergent class of the much greater mass of people ruled by coercive or sometimes mainly ideological domination from above” (Said 1988, vi). 37 This coincided with the election of Maria Elena Durazo, daughter of Mexican immigrant farm workers, to head Local 11 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Union in 1989. 38 That doesn’t mean that Blacks didn’t view Koreans as economic exploiters. 39 Mainstream institutions discuss these as major racial groups. 40 Because their population is negligible. 41 The U.S. racial hierarchy is becoming increasingly more fluid and gradational. Racial classification and the rules of racial recognition in the United States increasingly look like Latin American countries. 42 As of 2002, almost twice as many Angelenos believe the city has made progress toward improving race relations as those who see little progress. Nearly three-quarters believe the city’s racial and ethnic groups are getting along “very well” or “somewhat well”—compared with five years ago, when only one-third rated race relations in Los Angeles as good (Dreier 2003, 45). 43 Blacks still had higher school drop-out rates, greater homelessness, died younger and in greater numbers, were more likely to be jailed and serve longer sentences, and were far and away more likely to be victims of racial hate crimes than any other group in L.A. County. Earl Ofari Hutchinson. (04/23/2017). 25 Years Later, Los Angeles Hasn’t Recovered from the Rodney King Riots. Why? Decades after flames engulfed the city, empty lots remain. Huffington post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twenty-five-years-after-the-flames-why-are-there- still_us_58fcb1d2e4b0f420ad99c8cd