"Reflections on Migration and Economic Globalization: The 1992 L.A. Riots and the Korean American Community"

Abstract

The second largest Korean diasporic community resides in the U.S. The Korean American population increased in the 1960s/70s. These new urban immigrants found themselves in a new America where minority civil rights had just been gained and economic globalization changed the face of the American corporate business model. However, Koreans who migrated to the U.S. in the 1960s/70s were ignorant of the tumultuous racial and fiscal issues of their new homeland. Inner cities like South Central LA and Detroit, suffered the brunt of the downfall of the US economy as manufacturers left those once bustling towns. Faced with discrimination in corporate America, Korean Americans were forced into opening small businesses in those inner cities. While economic globalization had opened trade, and increased the interdependency of international economies, domestic racial and discrimination issues persisted in the US. Cultural differences, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots, government neglect, and police brutality, would fuel the anger and resentment of the inner-city minority population of African Americans toward the middle man “model minority” Korean American community. Not realizing that Korean Americans shared similar racial and discriminatory experiences, African Americans believed Korean Americans were taking advantage of the black community. By the 1980s, the black-Korean conflict made headlines. Then the Rodney King verdicts would spark the 1992 LA Riots and the targeting of Korean American businesses. The question is, how did migration and economic globalization contribute to the 1992 LA Riots and the Korean American experience? How did the Korean American identity change since then, especially as cultural globalization and things like the Hallyu Wave have deconstructed our traditional ideas of identity? My paper will seek to answer the aforementioned questions.