Photo by Eugene Yi
How K-Town Lost, and Won
Politics is dirty. Local politics is dirtier, and redistricting is as dirty as it gets. This spring, Koreatown fought back. The neighborhood will never be the same.
by EUGENE YI
The disbanding of an ad hoc political commission is a bit like the end of camp. Take the case of the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission. For its three-month existence, the 21 appointees of the commission spent hours together, often late into the night, poring over maps, gutting through accusatory public testimony and bickering, as they redrew the boundaries of the 15 council districts in the City of Angels. On Feb. 29, 2012, after they’d voted to approve the map that would be the fruit of their labor, each commissioner was given two minutes for some final thoughts. The arch-top windows lining the sides of the chamber had long gone dark, and nostalgia emerged as the commissioners reflected on the process.
“Hearing from … the Koreatown neighborhood council, I’m never going to forget that. Never going to forget everyone standing up at the same time in solidarity. That’s an image that’s going to be burned in my mind,” said commissioner Antonio Sanchez.
“I can still see, in my eyes at night, everyone sitting there with the white sashes across their chest,” said commissioner Ken Sampson, sounding haunted by the beauty-pageant-style protest sashes worn by hundreds of Koreatown protestors as they delivered their message: keep the neighborhood whole, and put it in a district where they could potentially elect a Korean American to the City Council.
Instead, the commission’s final map would leave the neighborhood’s political power split, as it has been for decades. For most, it wasn’t a surprise. There are few parts of American democracy as nakedly political as redistricting, the decennial process that redraws electoral districts to reflect the latest census data. The term gerrymandering has been around for 200 years, and incumbents have long used redistricting to fortify their access to money and votes. There are winners, there are losers, and often, there are lawsuits. This year, Koreatown lost, and Koreatown is talking lawsuit. Continue Reading »
The daughter of a Southern California police officer really, really wanted a Happy Meal.
Last week, Aram Choe was driving with his pregnant wife Elisabeth — who was experiencing contractions three weeks before her due date — but never made it to the hospital about 25 miles away from their home.
For Koreans, damage from the L.A. riots went deep
Los Angeles Times
Twenty years ago, they came to Dr. Man Chul Cho suffering from symptoms of hwa-byung, the “anger sickness” of Korean folklore: They couldn’t sleep, felt anxious and depressed, had muscle aches and stomach pains.
They had survived the riots, but couldn’t forget. Some were considered fierce defenders — they’d battled looters in public shootouts. Others had been all but invisible, pleading vainly for help from police while their shops burned.
They were so angry, bewildered and frightened that they were willing to buck custom and culture and trust a stranger for therapy.
Liquor store owner links old and new Koreatown
Los Angeles Times
Young Ok Lee’s store, a neighborhood institution, survived the riots. Now amid the thriving, hip Koreatown, she still serves the other Koreatown of immigrants, working-class families and mom and pop stores.
Accused Oikos University shooter pleads not guilty
Oakland Tribune
One Goh, 43, made the plea through a Korean language interpreter and also answered yes to a couple questions regarding his approval to waiving his right for a speedy trial.
Obama says N. Korea can’t leverage anything from provocations
Yonhap News
U.S. President Barack Obama made clear Monday that North Korea will be able to gain nothing from its provocative strategy.
After summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda here, Obama emphasized that the old pattern of Pyongyang taking provocative actions and getting concessions from the outside world is finished.
Soo Kang, Lincoln’s Interior Design Chief, On Orchestrating A Turnaround
Fast Company
Kang, a classically trained harpist with a penchant for visual arts, is about as far from a gearhead as you can imagine. But she caught the car maker’s attention when she won first place for her design in a student competition of a four-door luxury sedan. She’s been with the company ever since.
Korean Business Revitalizes Boulevard
Montgomery Advertiser
Hyundai isn’t just building cars. The Korean car manufacturer is helping to reshape the landscape of Montgomery’s businesses. The proof is obvious to those driving down East Boulevard, where a shopping center once in foreclosure is now thriving and a shuttered restaurant is now attracting new customers.
Stratford Square, under the direction of Korean-American family-owned Sys-Con LLC, has blossomed into a multicultural hub. Now there are four Korean businesses in the center, including the Greater Montgomery Korean Association headquarters, along with successful Chinese, Vietnamese and Hispanic businesses.
Support Movement for N.Korean Defectors Grows
Chosun Ilbo
Protests against China’s repatriation of North Korean defectors that went on for 77 days across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul are evolving into a broader movement aimed at educating and supporting defectors from the North.
Margaret Cho Finds Her Roots
Philadelphia Magazine
Margaret Cho may be more closely associated with her gay-empowering comedy routines with no shortage of blue material (hello, Gwen!) but the comedian takes a serious look at her Korean heritage in Finding Your Roots, a television series that airs this Sunday (May 6, 8 p.m.) on PBS.
Cho, who currently stars in Drop Dead Diva, will learn more about her Asian roots as a research team traces her ancestry back to her great-grandfather who’s clan can still be linked to modern-day North Korea.
5 Questions with Steven Yeun
Korea Economic Institute
Do you think that over the years the perception of Korean or Asian actors has changed in the United States?
SY: I think it’s slowly changing. I think there are roles out there that help to change that perception. I’m very fortunate to playing something that isn’t stereotypical. I don’t know if that is going to be a hard changing trend, but these are small steps that are making big waves and hopefully five, ten years from now, we won’t be having many conversations about if Asian-Americans can make it in this industry or not.
Korean Film Festival Coming to Hollywood
Patch.com (Los Angeles)
Marking the first time in its 85-year history, Korean performers will cast their hand and footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Saturday, June 23. This includes Korean actor Byung-hun Lee, an award-winning international star who recently appeared as Storm Shadow in Paramount Pictures’ G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and will be seen this summer in the sequel, G.I. Joe 2: The Retaliation, alongside Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Lee’s rise to fame was his role in A Bittersweet Life.
Timing of Pak’s shoulder injury “couldn’t have been worse”
Golf Digest
According to swing coach Tom Creavy, who says the timing of Se Ri Pak’s shoulder injury “couldn’t have been worse,” it is unlikely the LPGA Hall of Famer will be able to play in the U.S. Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wis., the site of her most memorable victory as a professional.
20,000 K-Pop Fans Mesmerized at Hollywood Bowl Music Festival 2012
KpopStarz
The audience was filled up with Korean American immigrants as well as non-Koreans who have traveled from North America, South America and as far as Europe proving the event to be the recognized as an international festival leading the communication between different ethnicity, countries, and generations through K-Pop. The diverse audience proved distance and language wasn’t an issue in attending the concert.
Taetiseo’s (SNSD) ‘Twinkle’ Music Video
YouTube
The Girls Generation sub group Taetiseo (TTS) dropped the video for its first single and has already racked up 1.7 million views in a little more than 24 hours. Gee.
In a somewhat shocking post on his personal blog, Kogi founder and culinary pioneer Roy Choi said he is considering leaving his profession. Continue Reading »
Posted: April 29th, 2012
Filed Under: April 2012 , Back Issues , BLOG , FEATURED ARTICLE
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. Continue Reading »
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Featured Event
One of the the biggest Asian cinema events to hit Southern California opens on May 10. The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications, features the latest works by established and emerging filmmakers, along with seminars, panel discussions and symposiums on topics relevant to Asian Pacific cinema.
Opening Night features “Shanghai Calling,” directed by Daniel Hsia and starring Korean American Daniel Henney, who plays a Chinese American expat lawyer navigating his way through the mean streets of Shanghai (the picture above also indicates he is a raisin smuggler). But does he take off his shirt? Go watch the movie to find out! read more
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