For more information
Call 1-800-351-0222

The 1992 Los Angeles Riot(s)
  Term Paper ID:27454 		Get This Paper Free! or
Essay Subject:
Discusses the view that the 1992 L.A riot was composed of two inter-related but significantly different riots. The first was sparked by rage in South Central, the second, more expensive one, occurred in the Latino Mid-City.... More...
5 Pages / 1125 Words
8 sources, 9 Citations, APA Format
$20.00

More Papers on This Topic


Paper Abstract:
Discusses the view that the 1992 L.A riot was composed of two inter-related but significantly different riots. The first was sparked by rage in South Central, the second, more expensive one, occurred in the Latino Mid-City.

Paper Introduction:
INTRODUCTION In April 1992 Los Angeles experienced the worst riot in an American city when the first of the juries trying the police officers accused of beating motorist Rodney King acquitted those officers. This was the second major riot in Los Angeles, the first being the Watts Riot in the mid-1960s. After the earlier riot, city officials promised that they would find ways to bridge the gap between the black and white communities and reduce cross-cultural tensions in the city. Tensions between the races and among different ethnic groups continued, however, and exploded once more in the 1992 riot. Those tensions have diminished somewhat in the city, but they have not disappeared, nor have the underlying causes been fully addressed. This leaves it an open question whether these tensions might erupt once more.

Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.


References Bouulet-Gercourt, P. Cross-cultural tensions of this sort stemlargely from poor economics, and the jobs these groups compete for areoften low-paying, leaving the workers mired in poverty and anxious aboutbeing shoved even lower on the economic scale if they lost those jobs(Bouulet-Gercourt, 1996, 43-44). The second, largely invisible, riot occurred in the preponderantly Latino Mid-city area. Fighting over the dream: The riots inL.A. Country, and was driven by Black anger, although it included significant participation of poor Mexican immigrants in the looting of stores and mini-malls. According to the arrest figures for that period, 38 percent ofthose arrested in the riot were black, while Latinos constituted 51 percentof those arrested. Many of these stores exist on small economic margins, so thecosts of such changes have meant nearly 2 stores have been unable toreopen. Korean merchantsdamaged by the riot see themselves as double victims, first by the riot,and second by the way city politicians required owners of small businesses,often without insurance, to reapply for their drink licenses from scratchand made the process as difficult as possible. By 1982, Los Angeles had 25 percent of all Koreancompanies in the United States, the largest percentage in the nation.These businesses operated nearly 5 percent of all retail firms, though theKoreans comprised less than one percent of the population. (Davis, 1993, 37-38). Blacks see culturaldifferences with Koreans and the fractured English of many Korean merchantsas rudeness, and they also complain that Koreans take money out of theircommunity and hire few non-Koreans and so do not contribute to thecommunity. A slow return from the ashes. A recent report looks to the mix of Hispanic cultures in the workplacein Los Angeles as a source of tension. (1997, April 24). Pearlstone, Z. LosAngeles Times, C5. . Blackresentments are fueled by a number of factors. News & WorldReport, 34. The riot was multicultural in that it involved blacks, Latinos,and whites. Ethnic L.A. Part Two: Theverdict is given. New York: Routledge. At the same time, the long-standing clashes betweenblacks and Koreans in the city, perpetuated by an economic theory known as"middleman minority," may be waning. Employees who have hired a mix of Hispanic workers have noticed thetensions among the groups (Laboy, 1997, C4). Eighty-percentof Koreans living in Los Angeles work in firms owned by Koreans, and in1987 there were more than 8, Korean-owned businesses in the Los Angelesarea (Pearlstone, 199 , 88). Davis, M. racial identities today (Omi and Winant, 1993, 1 4-1 5).Intergroup cleavages were clearly apparent, notably that between blacks andKoreans (Omi and Winant, 1993, 1 6-1 7). SOLUTIONS As store owners from the Korean community worked through the onerouspermitting process, activists insisted on imposing more and morerestrictions governing lighting, signage, selling hours, and on-sitesecurity. Winant (1993). The theory holds that middlemanminorities concentrate their stores adjacent to or within other minoritydistricts and sell merchandise produced by the dominant society to smallerminorities of poorer communities. This was the secondmajor riot in Los Angeles, the first being the Watts Riot in the mid-196 s. politics. (199 ). Yet, the Koreans have alsostarted building bridges to other communities and have formed black-Koreanfriendship societies to accomplish this (The Korean resurgence, 1997, 25). (1996, July). Tensions between Koreans and blacks were clearly evident in the riotof 1992. Since the middlemen are often seen as notreinvesting their earnings in the host community, hostility develops andcreates a vicious cycle. (1997, April 26). Davis concludes that therewere actually two riots: The first, which riveted the attention of the world, occurred in South Los Angeles and adjacent parts of L.A. Statistics show that this riot was not merely a black against whiteaffair. The earlier Japanese and Chinese populations were primarilyagriculturally-oriented emigrants, while the Koreans have come primarily asbusiness people. INTRODUCTION In April 1992 Los Angeles experienced the worst riot in an Americancity when the first of the juries trying the police officers accused ofbeating motorist Rodney King acquitted those officers. Koreans do tend to live in different neighborhoods from wherethey work, and even in Koreatown, where businesses are 4 percent Korean-owned, Koreans constitute only 1 percent of the population (MacFarquhar,1992, 34). Members of the fast growingSalvadorean and Guatemalan communities report that they face work-sitediscrimination from Mexicans who want to protect jobs for other Mexicans.Discrimination is especially rampant in the city's garment factories whereCentral Americans are more and more competing with Mexican workers forjobs. left Koreans and blacks further apart than ever. Tensions between the races and amongdifferent ethnic groups continued, however, and exploded once more in the1992 riot. (1992, May 18). U.S. Wood, D.B. and H. World PressReview, 43-44. (1993, May/June). More than any other Asian group, they have earned areputation for entrepreneurship. The Los Angeles 'race riot' andcontemporary U.S. Since the riot, the Korean community has rebuilt. Many Koreans were forced out of minoritycommunities, while others have embraced their English speaking hostcommunities by adding English to signs and by studying ways to healcultural misunderstandings (Wood, 1997, C5). (1997, March 26). Koreans today own4 percent of the city's dry-cleaning establishments, 4 percent of itsjunkyards, and more than half of the small groceries. MacFarquhar, E. This has increased racial tensions between African-Americans andKorean-Americans and between Korean-Americans and the larger whitecommunity alike. The new racial divide. Beverly Hills: Hillcrest Press. Omi, M. After the earlier riot, city officials promised that they would find waysto bridge the gap between the black and white communities and reduce cross-cultural tensions in the city. Wall Street Journal, C4. Another report notes worsening relations between the Chicano and blackcommunities in Los Angeles. Asian-Americans were involved as victims, with black ragedirected especially at Korean merchants (and Latino rage as well): The riot acted as a "pressure cooker," intensifying and revealing the ambivalences, fault lines, and polarizations which characterize U.S. Mix of Hispanic cultures is source ofworkplace tension, study finds. Those tensions have diminished somewhat in the city, but theyhave not disappeared, nor have the underlying causes been fully addressed.This leaves it an open question whether these tensions might erupt oncemore. REASONS Koreans have been seen by inner-city blacks as exploiters because theyown convenience stores and other retail businesses in those areas. New Left Review, 29-54. Who killed Los Angeles? The Economist, 25-26. The 198 census shows that 13.5 percentof all Koreans were self-employed, and this was the largest such proportionfor any immigrant group (though it may have been surpassed since that timeby the Iranians). . The Korean resurgence. In addition, the greatest density of riot-relatedincidents took place north of the Santa Monica Freeway in the Wilshire andRampart divisions and not in South Central. In Reading Rodney King, Reading UrbanUprising, Robert Gooding-Williams (ed). Laboy, J.

If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:

Search for:

or

We can write a Custom Essay just for you.


Browse Essays by Subject