...beating of Rodney King and weeks after a Korean American shopkeeper received five years’ probation in the shooting death of a Black teen, Los Angeles exploded into one of the most destructive episodes of civil unrest in American history. Korean businesses were the primary target of looters in the 1992 Los Angeles riots, as Los Angeles holds the nation's largest Korean American community of 145,000. For Korean Americans, the riot fundamentally altered their course of life in America. The riots had a profound economic, psychological and ideological impact that it is often referred to as a "turning point," and "defining moment" for a century’s history of Korean immigration to the United States. When the smoke cleared, Korean Americans were among those suffering the heaviest losses: Korean merchants suffered five shop owners killed, 2,100 Korean American-owned stores had been burned or damaged, amounting to about $400 million in losses, nearly half the city’s total. Not just landscape was essentially erased, personal identity also vanished for many Koreans. According to a study conducted about a year after the riots, almost 40% of Korean-Americans said they were thinking of leaving Los Angeles. The Korean American Inter- Agency Council(KAIAC) conducted a study and found that 15% of college-age youth had dropped out of school because of the riots. The council also found, of the 2,100 Korean businesses burned or looted, fewer than one in four have reopened. Korean Americans learned...
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...The Los Angeles Riots which is referred to be Sa-I-Gu, meaning 4-2-9, is a very sensitive racial issue among all Americans in Los Angeles despite what racial background they have. The very beginning of the riot was from the Rodney King incident. The incident involved four police officers brutally beating and murdering an African American motorist and found innocent for their act. Within same year, there was another incident involving African American girl and a Korean shop-owner. Young African American was shot by Korean owner for shop-lifting. This has light the fire amongst African American society to express their anger towards Korean Americans in Los Angeles. The documentary Sa-I-Gu was made to show what Korean American in Koreatown went through during the riots because there were not many media or places where they can speak to about the riot. During the time, the media was only focusing on leading the incident into racial conflict between Koreans and African Americans. Through this documentary, Korean American women who experienced harsh time in their life could speak up and share their feelings and thoughts about the experience and how their life has fallen apart. Most of Korean American at the time were first generation immigrants who were trying to just survive in their new home looking for their “American Dream”. However, due to their language barrier, there weren’t that many ways to live other than having their own business. They were known to be rude...
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...Analysis of the Demographics of Police Diversity in Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York City. In the early 40s in Los Angeles there were a lot of cultures, races, and people coming in and out of LA during WWII. many young Latino men were staring to get out and go to clubs, bars, and movies because they were not content to stay within their “barrios”, and started wearing big suites (zoot suits) and cutting their hair differently, to stand out. Around this time young army men were stationing in Los Angeles due to the war, and many times got into little fights with the zoot suitors because of racial differences. The local press had been saying that "zoot suitors" and "gangsters" were one and the same. On June 3, 1943, a few sailors claimed to have been beaten and robbed by some Mexican pachucos (zoot suitors). That night, a mob of about 200 sailors, drove into East Los Angeles to beat up and take the clothing off any young Latino male they could find. The authorities seemed to be ok with this chaos. “Gangs of American sailors and marines, armed with sticks, walked the streets during the zoot suit riots attacking any man wearing a zoot suit.” first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that the riots went “deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. i have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation.” a citizen committee formed to investigate the causes of the riots say, they were caused by racism in the city of Los Angeles. Mayor Fletcher brown disagreed and said, that...
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...The city I chose for my hazard analysis is Los Angeles CA and the hazard that is the highest risk to the city is an earthquake. L.A. is the second largest city in the United States; it encompasses over 498 square miles and is surrounded by mountains and ocean. L.A. is a very urban environment, its high concentration of infrastructure makes it vulnerable to earthquakes, but at the same time it also gives it the resources it needs to respond to earthquakes or any other hazards. L.A. has had a few large scale earthquakes in the last decades and some geological experts predict it will suffer a major quake in the near future. How it has responded to those disasters in the past is what has laid the foundation as to how the city will deal with future earthquakes or other hazards and attempt to minimize their impact on the city. Los Angeles lies around 60 miles from the San Andreas Fault. This fault line is one the most active fault lines in the world and as such is capable of producing severe earthquakes. And even though Los Angeles doesn’t lie directly underneath it like the city of San Francisco, the fault line does pose a great danger to the city. But even more of a threat to the city is the many unknown smaller fault lines that run beneath it. With a population of over 4 million people, a large size earth quake would cause substantial damage and injure or kill a large number of people. L.A. has had around six major earthquakes that were 6.0 or stronger in the last hundred years...
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...joining a neighborhood gang will make them become recognized, or safer, but the harsh reality is that so many youths don’t realize the hazards associated with gangs until it is too late. The history of street gangs in America dates back to the formation of America herself. The first gang-like groups formed in the Northeast right after the Revolutionary war ended, in 1783, in New York City. These groups were mainly young white immigrants from Europe who just fought over turf in the city. In the Midwest region (mainly Chicago) the first street gangs developed in the 1860s and were mainly white immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Lithuania. In the most western region of the United States Mexican gang-like groups started appearing in Los Angeles sometime around 1890s. Gang-like groups have been around America for quite some time but a few key events escalated gang presence in the United States. In 1920 the eighteenth amendment to the United States constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States. This meant the production, sale of, and transportation of alcohol was an illegal act punishable by law. This created a huge demand for alcohol and illegal traffickers (a.k.a. bootleggers) took advantage of this demand....
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...Tania Echeverrria COR 202 Prof. Williams Assignment “American Me" tells the story of the man who was stopped at the bus stop by cops and asked if he has done some time in prison. His name is Santana. He is a Hispanic American who grows up in East Los Angeles, joins a street gang and goes to prison when he still in high school. Now prison is his school in where he learns skills and by the time he is back on the streets again, he is a better educated criminal. During prison time, there is no punishment or the extinction of crime but there is the training of crime. Santana leads with the reality of street gangs and prison, in where drugs is the finance process to create a professional criminal class. According to a women voice in the movie, Santana is two men, one men is fearful and sweet, and doesn't know how to dance, or make love. The other man is a murderer. Santana’s life is cover many years in the movie in which it shows how a sweet man can change gradually to a killer. Santana is a person who hide his secrets but he is an excellent leader when he knows how to handle the consumption of cigarettes in prison because that is the only symbol in prison. He knows better how to run the operations from the inside of the prison as well as the drug issues outside of it. He takes control of the drug traffic from the inside. But, from the outside, he falls in love with a woman that makes him change in somehow the way he is acting. Santana leads his gang in a rebellion against...
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...1. Celcil Foster’s thesis was to show that racism is still alive and well, and it often goes un-noticed. He mentions the Rodney King verdict, and how it triggered the worst outbreak of violence since the Watts riots of 1965. The Rodney King riot started because Rodney King, an African American, was badly beaten by some officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. Rodney soon became a focal point showing how bad racial issues are. The public got angry about police brutality and racism, and some went around starting fires, damaging and breaking into businesses and stealing merchandise. This caused many riots across the United States, and even one in Toronto, Ontario. 2. The first example Foster gives is when he visited Canada during the Montreal...
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...“Twilight 1992” by Anna Deavere Smith tells the story about the mayhem that ensued in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. According to Wikipedia, the riots and violence broke out in L.A. for three continuously because, out of the four officers, who were involved in allegedly beating Rodney King, only one of them was found guilty of using excessive force and the others were cleared of all charges. This had a great impact on the citizens of L.A. “Twilight 1992” is a series of monologue which is based on the interview Smith conducted with different individuals who were involved in the L.A. riot. Among them, Rudy Salas, Stanley K. Sheinbaum and Jason Sandford intrigue me the most. In “Twilight” Rudy Salas, Sr. the Mexican sculptor and painter seem almost consumed with hatred towards white police officers. Because of his Mexican heredity he says he was called inferior in school by the “nice white teachers” (2). No wonder he called them “the enemy”. Even so he doesn’t exactly hate them. But rather he says he has “an insane hatred for white policemen” (Smith 3). That is because of the fact that he was beaten and turned deaf by four cops when he was a teenager. He was kicked in the head and his eardrums were fractured. Here Salas contradicts himself by saying “I don’t like to hate, the way my uncle Abraham told me that to hate is to waste energy and you mess with the man upstairs” (Smith 3). But then again he can’t deny how he feels towards white policemen. Rudy Salas, Sr...
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...experiencing police brutality. As it became a known routine and comfortable cycle, as the years went by, he realized that gang life was not what he wanted in the end. He goes through a remarkable transformation and changes his name from Monster Kody Scott to Sanyika Shakur which is Kiswahili for “unifier, gatherer of his people.” (Shakur, 1993, p. 363). He soon is able to form his own personal identity by joining a Muslim group and becoming a Black Nationalist. After reading this book, I can see the parallelism and similarities found in the material of Chapters 1-5 in Gangs in America’s Communities by James C. Howell and Elizabeth Griffiths. At the beginning of the autobiography, it was clear to me that the prevalence of gang emergence in Los Angeles was there, especially among black youths. According to Howell and Griffiths (2015), “As early as 1940, low-income housing settlements also contributed to gang growth among Black and Mexican youths alike” (p. 10). Scott briefly discusses the aspects of prison gangs later on when he bounces from place to place while serving his long sentence. He mentions the Surenos and Nortenos during his 36 month stay in San Quentin State Prison, asserting that their rivalry is similar to that of the Bloods and the Crips. Howell and Griffiths (2015) found “Rival southern California Hispanic street gangs thus were enemies with anyone from northern California, and vice versa. In time, this rivalry would unite the respective clusters of gangs in jails and...
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...such as racial discrimination, gang violence and unpredictable outbursts of brutality and from saying that there will always be the cold hard fact that there are some authority figures abusing their power. Cases of police brutality can be traced back to centuries ago, unfortunately when one usually thinks about the given topic, the biggest incident that comes to mind is the Rodney King trial. Since I will be touching on one of the most controversial cases in police brutality it is safe to say that police brutality is still “one of the most serious human violations in the United States. For years the negative use of force used by police officers and local authority has been of a main concern and a large issue throughout our nation” ("LA riots,"). Everything begins when, police officers abuse the use of force that has been given to them, meaning that it has become a growing concern about the abuse of police officers using unnecessary force. And as people have become more educated and aware of what’s taken place, more people have united. People have filed many complaints against police officers using excessive use of force during an arrest and in many cases we have seen how the police have used excessive and unnecessary force over a civilian, and with witnessing this abusive treatment the media has played a key role in demonstrating the abuse of force used by the police. This has created anger and fear in many individuals and also gives off a bad...
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...history. On March 3, 1991 following a high speed chase through a rough area of Los Angeles California five Los Angeles Police Officers brutally beat King in the middle of a roadway offering no mercy as he lay in the fetal position soaking up each hit that was delivered from the varies officers. From a nearby balcony a witness caught the beating of King. Whether or not Mr. King resisted the officers following the chase- the violence that followed was most certainly unwarranted. Many officers also stood near where the brutality was taking place, but offered no assisted to King- this footage was aired on national television. The outrage of the public was enough to begin a second riot all of its own. With tension between the Los Angeles Police Departments and African Americas already high in the area, this situation offered no mercy from either party. In 1992 Los Angeles police officers- Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon where all charged by Los Angeles County with criminal offenses, including assault with a deadly weapon (Rodney King, 2012). The officers was set to take place in Los Angeles county, but it was argued by the defense attorneys that a fair trial would not be possible because the amount of publicity that surrounded the case. From Los Angeles the case was moved to nearby Simi Valley, approximately 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles, a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. The officers were acquitted of all charges soon after the move to Simi...
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...Community Profile Yer Gabul Ethics & Social Responsibility/ETH 316 06/12/2014 Community Profile I am profiling South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central Los Angeles). South Los Angeles is famous for the 1992 Los Angeles riot. While there are famous historical landmarks in this area, it is mostly inhabited by low-income families. There are small business establishments, but most adults work for local merchants, small factories and assembly lines. Today, there are about 700,000 residents of which 55% are Latinos and 40% African-Americans. In the 1980s, widespread unemployment, poverty and street crime contributed to the rise of street gangs such as the “Crips” and “Bloods”. The neighboring communities often refer to this area as the “ghetto” or the “hood”. Needless to say, this region is heavily infested with drugs and crime. Also, the people in this region have faced issues involving discrimination and segregation. In recent years, however, local political leaders, commercial owners, and residents have joined forces in hopes of revitalizing and removing the association of urban decay and street crimes and violence with which South Los Angeles had become associated. Many non-profit agencies were established by promoting peace, employment assistance, and youth development and education. A monthly town meeting has been established where business owners, local politicians and residents address any issues and explore new opportunities to improve...
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...Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, a book written by Anna Deavere Smith, is based on the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This book is a collaboration of the experiences of the members of the Los Angeles community during the LA Riots. Smith interviewed a few hundred local LA residences for her book during the time of the riots. She succeeded in keeping a wide perspective by interviewing people from all ethnic backgrounds, including Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans. She also interviewed police officers and gang members. Combined with historical research, Twilight provides a meaningful and accurate exploration of the lurking causes of the Los Angeles riots. The event that sparked the Los Angeles riots was the police beating of Rodney King. Rodney King was driving recklessly while...
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...Raymond Putman M. Foulkes Urban Geography 11.18.11 Reel vs. Real: How cities are portrayed in film The setting often can make or break a movie. Think about it. If Ocean’s 11 was set in Gary, Indiana, instead of Las Vegas and Danny Ocean’s crew robbed the town’s one casino instead of three, would it have been the same film? Not at all. But if the movie had somehow made sense, would the perception of Gary—as a city—be different? Quite possibly. How a city is portrayed in film, whether accurate or not, plays a big role in how the city is viewed in real life.; this can be proven through different genres and in multiple cities. *** The Good Many movies that take have a very specific city-setting are extremely accurate. A prime example is Martin Scorsese’s The Gangs of New York. In the film, not only are the gangs portrayed accurately in their crime and demeanor, but the city’s landscape is spot-on (Christiano). Scorsese, having grown up in New York, did a marvelous job at catching the city’s gritty side that was a reality in the 19th century. History professor Tyler Anbinder said in a book about historical aspects of the film that Scorsese’s visual recreation of 19th century New York couldn’t have been better. The great part of the film’s grimy look at the city is that it shows a strong contrast to the city today (DiGirolamo). Likewise, Detroit is portrayed fairly accurately in John Singleton’s Four Brothers, a movie about four adopted brothers who come together...
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...Imagine your city under rage and disturbance created by one single incident that ignites an angry spark in thousands of people to get justice. One of the worst riot in United States History was the Los Angeles Riots that was triggered by the beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles Police Department officers. Rodney King is a symbol of mistreatment of African Americans throughout the justice system. Rodney King was undeserving of the mistreatment that he endured. March 3, 1991 was a day that we would all remember. Rodney Glen King III was an African American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles Police officers. On March 3, 1991 Rodney King and two of his friends named Bryant Allen and Freddie...
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