Los Angeles--Struggles toward Multiethnic Community

Asian American, African American, and Latino Perspectives

Edward T. Chang, Russell Charles Leong, Edward T. Chang, Russell Charles Leong

• Editore: University of Washington Press
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780295997773
• Argomento: Ciencias sociales
• Categoria: Estudios étnicos

Myths and theories of the American melting pot, of assimilation, and of pluralistic society were shattered as racial violence during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising vividly exposed the inadequacy of our prior assumptions. The uprising revealed that radical approaches are needed to address structural issues of economic and political inequality, and issues of race and representation. Los Angeles has emerged as a focal point for social scientists as they develop new ideas about race relations. This volume, based on a special issue of Amerasia Journal, focuses o race and ethnic relations in Los Angeles as they emerged out of the uprising and within the broader national picture. Latino and Asian and African American scholars, journalists, and writers have contributed two dozen essays, commentaries, and literary works. Among the scholarly essays are "Jewish and Korean Merchants in African American Neighborhoods" by Edward Chang, "Communication between African Americans and Korean Americans before and after the Los Angeles Riots" by Ella Stewart, "Asian Americans and Latinos in San Gabriel Valley, California" by Leland T. Saito, "The South Central Los Angeles Eruption: A Latino Perspective" by Armando Navarro, and "Race, Class, Conflict and Empowerment: On Ice Cube's 'Black Korea'" by Jeff Chang. Commentaries by Asian and African American writers feature Larry Aubry, Angela E. Oh, Sharon Park, Amy Uyematsu, Erich Nakano, Walter Lew, and Miriam Ching Louie. A selection of literary writings features Mari Sunaida, Ko Won, Wanda Coleman, Mellonee R. Houston, Sae Lee, Nat Jones, Arjuna, Chungmi Kim, and Lynn Manning.

Communication between African Americans and Korean Americans:

Before and After the Los Angeles Riots

ELLA STEWART

As I walked through the quiescent streets of South Central Los Angeles last November 1992, I felt a sense of serenity that permeated the air. Except for a young African American female who stood at a nearby street corner waiting for the traffic light to change, the streets were devoid of pedestrians and traffic. From afar, all seemed well. However, upon closer inspection, remnants of last spring’s riots prevailed in varied forms. Empty lots, boarded up buildings, and patches of lumber placed over broken windows of some of the remaining businesses were silent reminders throughout the city of the most devastating civil unrest in Los Angeles’ history.

I initiated my present study in February 1992 as a follow-up study to my original 1989 survey of communication patterns between Korean American merchants and African American patrons in South Central Los Angeles.¹ My efforts, however, to locate and interview Korean American proprietors who had participated in my 1989 study on Korean/Black communication proved futile for the most part. As a consequence of the 1992 riots, I could only locate four of the twenty participants of the study. Many of the proprietors had either lost their businesses during the riots, had set up businesses in other locations, did not have the necessary funds to rebuild, or had moved back to Korea. Other proprietors, those African Americans and Hispanic Americans who had suffered losses during the riots, also had relocated to other areas, begun to rebuild their businesses, or planned to rebuild pending availability of funds.

Upon completion of this survey one year later, the Latasha Harlins killing and the subsequent Soon Ja Du and the Rodney King verdicts served to reshape the attitudes of Koreans and African Americans in particular and the citizens of Los Angeles regarding interethnic tensions and hostility. During the months following the riots, my study was expanded and modified to include a wider population sample of the Korean and African American populations which reflected more diversified socioeconomic backgrounds.

As a researcher who had surveyed both groups from 1988 onwards, I was interested in how the perceptions and attitudes of African and Korean Americans had changed in the months before and following the riots. Among the general questions I had were:

—What were the general attitudes of African and Korean Americans toward the communication between them?

—What factors did each group perceive as causing interethnic tensions?

—What did each group perceive as solutions for solving interethnic tensions between them?

It is commonly argued that the sources of tensions, hostilities, and violence in Los Angeles are rooted in its changing ethnic, cultural, and racial makeup, leading to competition in employment, housing, and economic development among groups.

Koreans in Los Angeles are perceived to have advanced economically and numerically,² while the African American population has decreased in size and in economic gains. In Los Angeles, African Americans and Hispanic Americans trail Korean Americans in both educational and economic areas. The median family income for African Americans, Hispanics and Korean Americans in 1989 was $14,930, $15,531 and $20,147 respectively. Today, approximately eight million people reside in Los Angeles county and close to three and half million live in the city of Los Angeles alone.³ In 1970, the population of the city was 71 percent White. By 1980, persons of African, Latino and Asian descent together were 51.1 percent of the total population.⁴ By 1990, the largest ethnic group residing in the city consisted of persons of Hispanic origin (1,391,411). The second largest ethnic group consisted of persons of African descent (487,674), followed by persons of Asian descent (341,807) of which 72,970 are Korean Americans. Whites constitute about 1,841,182 of the city’s population.⁵

While part of this economic disparity between African Americans and other ethnic minority groups can be attributed to a poor educational system and low income, part of the disparity can be attributed to racial discrimination. Thus the Soon Ja Du case not only symbolized fractured relationships between African and Korean Americans, but also demonstrated the differential treatment accorded to both groups by the American legal system. The civil unrest that followed the verdict in the Rodney King case on April 29, 1992 also underscored the differing perceptions that Koreans and African Americans had toward each other, and the difficulty of communication between the two groups.

Definitions of Terms

For the purposes of this essay, I want to broadly define a number of terms: discrimination, communication, culture, and intercultural communication.

DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination may take many forms but discriminatory practices can be divided into two main types: legal discrimination and institutionalized discrimination. Legal discrimination (overt practices) refers to discriminatory acts and policies that are endorsed by the law of the land. Institutionalized discrimination (covert practices) refers to discriminatory acts and policies that are not officially practiced or legally endorsed, but are nevertheless pervasive in major institutions such as schools, banks, and the courts.⁶

Institutionalized discrimination produces oppression. Turner et al.⁷ define oppression in the following way: “Oppression is a situation in which a social system systematically and successfully acts over a prolonged period of time to prevent another identifiable segment, or segments of the population from attaining access to the scarce and valued resources of the system.” First, oppression is a situation that endures over a “prolonged” period of time. Second, it involves “systematic” efforts of an “identifiable population”⁸ to limit the actions of others. More clearly, oppression is a self-conscious process by specific people in particular contexts; it is not the unanticipated result of unconscious social processes. Third, such efforts must be “successful” if a situation of oppression is to exist. Fourth, because oppression denies access of one or more segments of a population to “scarce and valued” resources, it is a dimension of more general stratification processes in a society.

In American society, Black-White relations have historically involved relegation and confinement of Blacks to the lowest rank in the stratification system, thereby denying them access to material well-being, power, and prestige. Similarly, in Japan, Koreans were typically discriminated against and regarded as inferior by the Japanese.⁹ Oppression does not always lead to relegation to the lowest ranks. Some victims of oppression can be denied both power and prestige, but can occupy middle ranks in terms of their access to material well-being. For example, Asians in America such as the Japanese were initially denied access to power and prestige, but were allowed to accumulate wealth as long as their activities were confined to a limited range of roles. Jews in Europe until recently had been denied power but allowed to gather educational prestige and wealth from economic activities. (For a broad contextual overview of the histories of African Americans and Koreans, which is crucial to understanding the culture and attitudes of the two groups, see appendix 1 and 2.)

In America, while ethnic minorities in general are victims of some form of oppression, African Americans in particular are victims of oppression in almost every strata. In interviews, African Americans described “feelings of oppression” and “being victimized by the system” when citing some of the causes of the riots. “Feeling shut out” of the justice system and “being victims of double-standards” were other reasons African Americans cited as causes to rebel against the system, “not necessarily at Korean Americans.”¹⁰

Korean Americans likewise stated that African Americans “suffer more racism” in America than Korean Americans “even though both are affected by built-in racism.”¹¹ Although many Korean American appeared sympathetic toward the plight of African Americans, they were nevertheless angry with black riot participants and fearful of another civil uprising.

Both groups continue to blame each other for ethnic tensions and hostilities in Los Angeles and continue to offer prescriptive measures and suggestions on how the other should behave. In the 1992 study, however, many focused on elements within the American system that perpetuate racial and ethnic tensions and promote division among all Americans.

COMMUNICATION

Communication includes verbal and nonverbal interactions between two or more persons. Verbal communication is the use of “written or spoken” language to exchange messages, whereas nonverbal communication is characterized by the use of “gestures and other nonlinguistic devices” to send reciprocal messages.¹² Body posture, demeanor, eye contact, gestures, etc. are sometimes viewed by African Americans as the most important determinants of communication outcomes. This may be due to an old saying in the African American community, “Actions speak louder than words.”

In Korea, it is often more important the way you do something than what you actually do or say. To damage one’s kinbun may cut off relationships and create an enemy.¹³ However, in the United States, Korean Americans focus first on what is said, followed by accompanying nonverbal cues during interethnic group communication. This may be due to the problems Korean Americans face in America interacting in a language that is difficult for them. Moving in and out of two distinctly different language communities becomes problematic for many Koreans as well as members from other ethnic cultural groups for whom English is a second language. In any case, what we speak and how we speak it are crucial factors in communication interactions in general, and in intercultural communication in particular.

CULTURE

Culture and communication are inseparable. According to anthropologist Edward T. Hall¹⁴ culture is communication and communication is culture. The way we communicate, what we believe, what we say, the language ...