April Issue: Mapping the Riot Damage to Korean-run Businesses
Map by Suejean Ahn
This map details the destruction wrought on Korean-owned businesses — shops, liquor stores, dry cleaners, etc. — during the 1992 L.A. Riots. Many of the businesses affected are highlighted in our extensive oral history of the 4.29 events.
(Adapted from map by M. Gref for Günter Thieme and Hans Dieter Laux, Erdkunde Journal, vol. 49, issue 4. Based on data from May 6, 1992 Korea Times.)
This article was published in the April 2012 issue of KoreAm. Subscribe today!
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After the Trauma
KoreAm mental health columnist Dr. Esther Oh distills the symptoms, consequences and treatments of PTSD, an anxiety disorder that affected many Korean American riot victims.
In April 1992, one of the worst riots in our country’s history broke out in Los Angeles. The L.A. riots left many dead, injured and financially ruined. Among those affected were a large group of Korean Americans who owned and worked in businesses in the area. Though I was young, I vividly remember watching the horrible images on my grandfather’s television screen of buildings on fire, injured people fleeing the streets and widespread looting.
The riots were unexpected and monumental, leaving the Korean American community demoralized and enraged. It took decades for the Korean Americans to build and establish businesses in the city, but only three days to destroy them. In the post-riot recovery period, the community focused on the financial losses and rebuilding efforts. Victims were understandably in survival mode. Unfortunately, the emotional trauma experienced by many got lost in the shuffle. One study later showed that 75 percent of Korean riot victims surveyed had developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with 55 percent of them diagnosed with a severe form. Only 7 percent of the surveyed victims, however, sought professional psychiatric help.
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Yungsuhn Park, with her family, during a vacation one year before her father died.
In 1992, most of the children of Korean riot victims were too young to speak out and explain their family’s situations, though they possessed a skill that eluded their immigrant parents: speaking fluent English. Twenty years later, this generation has grown up. They can speak now, and though 4.29 remains a painful subject, these children of Saigu carry its legacy into the future.
by YUNGSUHN PARK
I was in middle school in 1992 when I experienced the destruction of Saigu firsthand.
On April 30, the violence had reached Koreatown, and I remember my mom calling a body shop owner who worked down the street from our boyak (Korean herbal medicine) shop. He reported that it looked like our block was on fire. I watched my mom as she fell to the floor, her hopes and dreams shattered. The shop was the sum of my parents’ hard work for the last 13 years, and the idea of starting over was devastating.
In that moment, I realized how much the shop was part of her. Like many other immigrants, running a small business was not just a way to make a living, but it was the only way to survive and thrive in this country. It was also a family affair. I grew up helping my parents with just about everything. I played “secretary,” often writing business letters for my dad and even accompanied him on the road on weekends to check out auctions and other business opportunities out of town.
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In 1992, most of the children of Korean riot victims were too young to speak out and explain their family’s situations, though they possessed a skill that eluded their immigrant parents: speaking fluent English. Twenty years later, this generation has grown up. They can speak now, and though 4.29 remains a painful subject, these children of Saigu carry its legacy into the future.
by CAROL PARK
On April 29, 1992, I was walking home from school with my two older brothers, just like any other typical day. We attended a small private Christian school and lived in a nice neighborhood in Los Angeles County. But once we got home and my brothers turned on the TV, news footage of crowds gathering at local businesses dominated the airwaves. Then 12 years old, I worried for my mother, who was still at her gas station in Compton. She and my father had run the station together since the late 1970s. Mom inherited it from my father who died from cancer in 1990.
After he passed away, mom, my brothers and I worked at the family business. We would man the bulletproof cashier’s booth; we sold gas, stocked soda, candy, cigarettes and other items. I’d often help my mom during the graveyard shifts. Sometimes I’d get into fights with customers. Sometimes I’d get yelled at and called “chink,” “jap,” “gook,” “nip” or whatever racist term seemed to be the flavor of the day. Sometimes I yelled back. Most of the time I tried to mind my own business and work. I didn’t want to get robbed or shot like some of the other Korean business owners in the area.
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Alex Ko, with his parents and brother, at their former video store in Koreatown.
In 1992, most of the children of Korean riot victims were too young to speak out and explain their family’s situations, though they possessed a skill that eluded their immigrant parents: speaking fluent English. Twenty years later, this generation has grown up. They can speak now, and though 4.29 remains a painful subject, these children of Saigu carry its legacy into the future.
by ALEX KO
I assumed that the wounds left by the riots would fester for a lifetime. I thought of myself and my family as permanently disfigured. Too many of the days following 4.29 were dark ones.
But here we are, 20 years later, and we are still alive. My parents, while not rich, through toil and a little luck, own a successful small business. Too many families lost everything and never got a second chance.
As the pages of the calendar fell away, we had graduations, marriages, children were born, and family members have passed away. I can still point to the pain left by the riots. For years, it lived squarely in my chest as a terrible ache. Now, I don’t feel it most days. But really, I have trained myself to stop feeling it.
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A view of Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, with smoke clouds in the background. ©HYUNGWON KANG
SAIGU: AN ORAL HISTORY
KoreAm retraces the days and nights of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a defining event in Korean America’s collective history.
by EUGENE YI
additional interviews by K.W. Lee, Julie Ha, John H. Lee, Paula Daniels, Alex Ko, Katherine Yungmee Kim, Sophia Kim and Emily Kim
The events of April 29, 1992, have been referred to as a riot, a rebellion, an uprising, a civil unrest. For many Koreans, it’s always been 4.29, following the standard cultural shorthand for the dates of historic tragedies. Yet over the past 20 years, the primary narrative of 4.29 has rarely included Korean American perspectives beyond stereotyped notions of victims or vigilantes. This oral history seeks to rectify that in some small measure, and to give those who didn’t witness the traumatic days and nights of fires, chaos and violence a sense of what Korean Americans went through. The events, after all, have been referred to by some as the birth of Korean America, a characterization that isn’t far off.
In the period leading up to 4.29, the mainstream media had fed the public a series of stories on the rising tensions in South Central Los Angeles between African American residents and the Korean merchant class that had become a fixture there. Then, in March 1991, Soon Ja Du, a Korean immigrant storeowner, shot and killed Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African American customer, following a violent scuffle between the two at Du’s South Central liquor store, worsening an already strained situation. Just 13 days earlier, the brutal beating of African American motorist Rodney King by four white Los Angeles Police Department officers vividly demonstrated the iron-fisted tactics under then-Chief Daryl Gates. The social, economic and political structures seemed aligned to oppress, and the city waited uneasily on April 29, 1992, for the verdict in the excessive force case against the police officers who beat King.
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Guys – your map is not oriented toward north. It’s very irresponsible to do that and make is very difficult to read!
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/la_riots_korean_los_angeles_times_john_lee.php#comment-512427635
Koreans were scapegoated for the riots by looters and the LAPD.
Being looted is significant economic damage. Not everyone has insurance to pay for it. You think the looters nicely picked up things without damage to property?
Huuuuuuuuge difference between being looted and being destroyed. This should be two maps.