Remapping Koreatown: Folklore, Narrative and the Los Angeles Riots

Author(s): Timothy R. Tangherliini

Source: Western Folklore , Winter, 1999, Vol. 58, No. 2, Built L.A.: Folklore and Place in
Los Angeles (Winter, 1999), pp. 149-173
Published by: Western States Folklore Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1500164

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Remapping Koreatown:
Folklore, Narrative and
the Los Angeles Riots
TIMOTHY R. TANGHERLIINI

On April 29, 1992, in reaction to the acquitt

charged with the beating of Rodney King,
of the most destructive episodes of civil
Originally centered at the intersection of
mandie Avenue in the South Central district,
arson quickly spread to other parts of th
Koreatown, situated just to the north of
directly in the path of this maelstrom of des
widespread arson that accompanied the lootin
man-made environment were essentially eras
aftermath of the riots, a landscape that ha
practices of the people who worked and l
deeply scarred and, in some instances, redu
city, particularly in these two neighborhoods
by the destruction, and the earlier man-m
interpolated through a palimpsestic rereading
mittees to both study the cause and effects o
Angeles were almost immediately establish
between the physical destruction of places
identities associated with those places em
and the envisioned phoenix-like rise of a r
ashes, a reinscription of place and, by extens
way in Koreatown through the tactical deploy
practices, among them traditional perfor
ence narratives (de Certeau 1984, xix). In b
atown became a primary focus of these folkl
it to the streets," both in performance and t
Western Folklore 58 (Winter, 1999):149-73
149

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 150 WESTERN FOLKLORE

Americans began reasser

atown (Lees 1998:238; Be
A majority of the schola
the political, social and cul
of the folkloric aspects
1993; Salak 1993; Hazen 1
of the effects of the riots
les as a whole are plentif
Chang 1994; Chang 1993;
Kwong 1992), while a nu
between the Korean Am
community, both from sh
from longer term historic
and Leong 1994; Chang a
the most complete conside
the Los Angeles riots is
(1995). Their approach fu
ans in America and sout
ration of the effects of the riots on Korean Americans drawn from a

broad generational and class spectrum in the greater Los Angeles a

Their study ultimately ranges far beyond the scope of the Los Angeles
and they conclude by suggesting that, "the complexities-confusio
Korean American politics refract the major political and ideological stru
gles of our time: the persisting divides of ethnicity and class, the mean
and morality of community, and conflicts over gender and multicultur
ism" (Abelmann and Lie 1995, 185). Despite the validity of these co
sions, their broad approach, unfortunately, sheds little light on t
folkloric dimension of the Korean American responses to the riot
responses that were intimately related to a well-developed sense of
The riots were in large part about place. While the riots were not the
ritorial warfare that nations frequently engage in, nor even the violen
tles over neighborhood fought out by street gangs (although this may
played some role in the riots), the riots instead posed a direct challenge
the spatial practices of self-defined ethnic communities. In the case of
atown, the riots impacted a space that had been transformed into h
specified and culturally charged places by Korean Americans, Lat
and African Americans all living and working in close proximity t
another. The challenge to the claims of these groups' rights to define t
places accordingly echo the questions posed by Gupta and Ferg
(1992, 11): "Who has the power to make places of spaces? Who cont

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 151

this? What is at stake?'"7 These q

riots.

Geographers and anthropolo

connection between place and
1992; Sorkin 1992b; Logan an
1988; Clifford 1988; Carter,
geographers of Los Angeles h
modern geography that problem
of place and the idea of a sing
(Soja 1989; Sorkin 1992a; Davi
postmodern geography, place
preted by recent arrivals. Th
tributes to a Los Angeles land
both by ethnicity and class am
multiple and at times conflictin
(Soja 1989). Edward Soja mention
gender, age, income, and eth
geography in Los Angeles, a la
turfs, unstable boundaries, pe
of outrageous wealth and des
add, "In the pulverized space of
evant: it has been reterritoriali
experience of space that charact
ics). Instead, as Robins notes, "n
subvert 'traditional' territorial
them in more complex ways.
community, culture and sens
rupted landscape of conflictin
and multivalent meanings descr
Charles Jencks views the spati
itly postmodern and proposes
some ways--economically, legally
tinct," adding that this distin
cliche, since "culture is, in the
liar values, customs, ideas, an
torical" (Jencks 1993, 104). Jen
assessment of the positive impa
ity of these distinctions to p
form, such as the proliferat
entire culture, a view proposed

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 152 WESTERN FOLKLORE

overlapping cultural Disney

torically sanitized and
the case of Koreatown, a m
that of Michael Sorkin, wh
eral relations with profoun
information about status
the potential for multipl
a particular place and the
claims.9

Koreatown is perhaps one of the best examples in Los Angeles of an

area that has had such a history of overlapping uses, and an area in
which social relations, and ethnic identities, are mapped clearly onto
the man-made urban landscape in newly emergent hybrid forms. These
mappings, in turn, are negotiated on a daily basis in tactical and non-vio-
lent ways by the people who circulate in this neighborhood (de Certeau
1983, xix). Not until the riots did these low-level, day-to-day skirmishes con-
cerning negotiations of power and place explode into a full-scale battle.
When it did, however, the attempted reinscriptions of place were fought
out on a block-by-block basis on the streets that criss-cross the town, mir-
roring Loretta Lees's notion that "the street provides an urban space
where 'subversive forces, forces of rupture, ludic forces act and meet'"
(Lees 1998, 237; Barthes 1986, 96). In the aftermath of the riots, these very
same streets became a locus for a peaceful reassertion of the Korean
American connection to the area. In this sense, in post riot Koreatown, as
Gupta and Ferguson suggest, "Territoriality [was]...reinscribed at just
the point it [was] threaten[ed] to be erased" (1992, 11).
Koreatown received official designation as a community by the city of
Los Angeles in 1980, although the area had been a magnet for Korean
businesses at least since the late 1960s. The "town" is loosely bounded by
Pico Boulevard to the south, Crenshaw Avenue to the west, Hoover Street
to the east, and Beverly Boulevard to the north, although any attempts to
put distinct boundaries on the area are doomed to failure (Kim Yong Mok
1994, 6). In fact, nearly every person familiar with Koreatown proposes
slightly different boundaries for it and one should consider some of the
narrative responses to the riots as attempts to determine the boundaries of
the area, to establish a cognitive map, both prior to and after the riots. In
a discussion of the folkloric process of cognitive map-making, Ryder
points out that "we draw...cognitive maps as a result of our needs and
experiences in a particular environment. Depending as they do largely on
experience, they tend to be highly subjective" (Ryder 1993, 54). In light of

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 153

Gupta and Ferguson's (1992, 1

inform notions of place, and
these cognitive maps, it is cle
politicized.
Unlike the enclaves consider
not monolithically dominate
stores and businesses.1' Altho
throughout the area, so too a
signs.1' While Soja suggests th
where "scores of different cu
1996, 458), Koreatown at that t
cultural worlds overlapped, wri
the same space. The signed la
presents) a person walking or d
tilingual landscape. This lands
interpretations of the area. T
are not insignificant features o
the circulation of goods and ser
signage, give clues to the ethn
S. 1997, 58; Cresswell 1998, 2
Koreatown, as opposed to China
a distinctive landscape using sig
impression of a Korean neigh
For the person who reads on
dominantly Korean one, mim
Pusan. Indeed, many of the si
erences to establishments in K
connection to Korea. For tho
names and the regional politi
signed landscape allows for a gr
the particularization of segmen
the person who reads only Span
ferent-intelligible but with
ment to it. The mix of stores
markets, street vendors, lunc
tuting the bulk of predominant
person who reads neither Kor
sents yet another face-one th
occasionally by the icons of
1997, 78; Abrahamson 1996, 7

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 154 WESTERN FOLKLORE

English translations are

Market"-a swapmeet rebuil
sign as "Champion Mark
accessibility of the signe
there are people who hav
thus further complicating
and Lie 1995). Ultimately
to that landscape-provide
text, one that can be rea
guistic and, to a certain
observer. As Michael Keith notes, "The street is both a state of con-
sciousness and a locus of meaning, a way of thinking about the world and
a semiotic source of dramaturgical keys and cues. As such it is...a partic-
ularly powerful illustration of the manner in which a vocabulary of the city
renders the social visible" (Keith 1995, 310).
Koreatown is for many Korean Americans much more than simply a
high density agglomeration of stores catering to the specific needs of the
large Korean heritage population in Southern California (Kim E. 1993;
Cho 1993; Abelmann and Lie 1995). Rather, the town acts as an anchor of
identity, a referent point in the vast multicultural landscape of late twen-
tieth century Los Angeles and, as such, echoes Gupta and Ferguson's
observation "that as actual places and localities become ever more blurred
and indeterminate, ideas of culturally and ethnically distinct places become
perhaps even more salient" (Gupta and Ferguson 1992, 10). It is this inten-
sification of the idea of cultural and ethnic relationship to place that in part
accounts for the response of Korean Americans in the aftermath of the
riots. Even for those Korean Americans who had no direct connection to

Koreatown, the conceptually mapped area still acted as an imagine

source for a sense of cultural identity that had roots in Korea but was
anchored now in America (Gupta and Ferguson 1992, 11; Abelmann
and Lie 1995, 85). In short, Koreatown in 1992 served an important rol
in the collective imaginings of a Korean American identity (Anderson
1991). As Soja rightfully points out, by the early 1990s, a "recharging o
locale and spatial location with active political attachment and iden
tity...spread to the poorest neighborhoods," (Soja 1996, 450) Koreatow
included, so that the area was charged not only with aspects of identity of
the imagined Korean American community, but also with the active imag-
inings of various Latino communities as well. The forceful erasure of a sig-
nificant element in this political imagining of identity-in this case, a
part of town that held value as a "staging settlement" for Koreans

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 155

resulted in a far more elaborat

would have been expected if K
Immediately after the riots, lar
markers that identified area s
Korean American owned or ser
landmarks had disappeared fro
terns of circulation and day-to-da
the traces of businesses and a lan
of protracted burning, looting an
landscape as predominantly Ko
stitute icons of identity that we
most effective tactics deployed
time between the the ri end of
of concrete manifestations of
identity in the landscape were the
formances in Koreatown and t
emphasized place.
The peace rally at Ardmore Park
atown on May 2 was perhaps t
informed performances enacted
immediate aftermath of the ri
according to police estimates, t
Boulevard to Western Avenue, no
mont Avenue-was confined to
businesses that had been burned
201; Ong and Hee 1993, 78-104
demonstrators were numerous-ac
ments had responded slowly o
Koreatown merchants, complain
agencies were dragging their fee
ious communities that compris
(Park, W. 1994, 201-205). In the
erally "took it to the streets," an
namely that "on the streets...m
publicly (and thus politically)
mate members of the polity"'
from the explicit political goals
ticular Korean expressive forms
to the minjung movement in Sou
to rewrite a Korean American i

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 156 WESTERN FOLKLORE

Among the most expli

rated into the demonstr
mul, nong'ak) as mus
p'ungmul as part of the
linked the march to the
and one that made a d
Korean American busin
for p'ungmul groups to
sidered to be a sonic and
jung, the disenfranchised
the ruling elites (Choi
p'ungmul during the May
jung struggle for audienc
demonstrators' calls for
ing correlation was im
these communities of
tion was only accessible t
struggle in Korea. In th
audience, the implicit
that defined the landscap
of reaching out to mak
struggle and the struggl
potentiality of that very
of the connection itself.

Another aspect of the p'ungmul performances during the May 2 demon-

stration-and once again an aspect only accessible to those familiar with
Korean American culture in Koreatown-was its clear link to the New Year

practice of chisin palpgi (earth spirit treading) during which nong'ak

groups wander from business to business in Koreatown playing in return
for "good luck" money.14 The chisin palpgi performance chases away dan-
gerous spirits that could threaten the businesses in the coming year.
Beyond its folk belief function, the practice, known primarily from rural
Korean villages, also serves to map the community. By transferring the prac-
tice to the dense urban landscape of Los Angeles, the farmers' bands and
the Korean businesses that participate in the event make an implicit ref-
erence to the sense of community in Koreatown (effectively equating it with
a village) and simultaneously delimit the boundaries of this newly imagined
village. Members of one of the p'ungmul groups that played during the
demonstration explicitly referred to the link between the New Year's
practice and the May 2 performance, with one of my informants saying,

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 157

"We played in the demonstration f

that support us that we support the
atown is our kohyang (home villa
tours the Koreatown businesses at th
their music, the spatial organizat
march through Koreatown in the
group engaged a remarkably similar
this quite specific performance-a pe
was only accessible to those familiar
of Korean American groups in K
tributed significantly to the reinscri
the damaged landscape.
Other aspects of the march made f
protest in Korea, and thus furthered
to reclaim-or rewrite-the erased m
Chants accompanied by rhythmic
banners written in Korean, and th
ciated with peasants' dress (Kim Kwa
even sacrificial, quests to protect com
ments that made direct reference
eration era South Korea. Once again
that so marked the landscape prio
found in a clearly described enviro
the procession of the demonstrat
direct reference to Korean heritag
whose thick meaning was inaccessi
stand Korean nor had any know
(Geertz 1973). This inaccessibility o
erate, or even conscious, gesture o
and certainly not intended to be p
the extraordinary cultural complexit
mately, one can view the May 2 m
alongside its expressed political f
Korean cultural enactments of Korea
tity, the demonstrators performe
ated acts that began the process of
Korean language signs that once m
Like a scribe retracing the palimp
formances (explicit and implicit)
process of reproducing the enviro

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158 WESTERN FOLKLORE

Another intriguing rei

landscape emerged in
tives detailing the riots.
so clearly involved place,
ican informants made f
(street names, descript
Nearly all of the persona
the connection between
ticularly to Koreatown
throughout Los Angeles-p
rators as challenges to i
Korean American comm
From a folkloristic per
to the riots was this na
experience narratives
account-fall into two m
who participated in or we
and narratives told by p
either case, the narrators
role that place plays in
detail by folklorists (N
(Tuan 1991), and psycho
1983). Part of the narr
memory is to a great ext
1976; Rubin 1995, 49-6
Koreatown and of the rio
ration (Ryder 1993). In
Koreatown are mapped on
memorializing, reestablis
remembering a story is a
mind so too does the stor
the main action in the fil
ting, is Koreatown. Accor
of Koreatown (or in som
image of Koreatown em
played out directly in fr
vision screen, though pr
constructed place. Thro
reemerges as a conceptu
concern the destruction o

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 REMAPPING KOREATOWN 159

narrator rejects the notion of

narratively reconstitutes it.
The majority of riot narrative
the violent destruction in Ko
from the television. Raphael
ents' booth at a swapmeet wa
Our store got hit. It was in S
Manchester. And that night
and my mom called and stuf
pretty much South Central ar
know other Koreans they h
indoor swapmeet. And that
thought there's gonna be
National Guard's there, its g
and she was really worried and
should do, and I said don't go o
gonna be protected. And after
the news, and a helicopter ki
right? The picture on the scr
shop. People were going in a
speechless. And after that we
but please don't get burned
there was another helicopter
over. And then my parents ca
still shocked, I couldn't belie
huge building that we were
the way down the street that
street, and that area was rea
couldn't go back until like fou
merchants got together wh
went down together and saw
too and all the metal was burnt. It was a basement and the whole
place was a mess. It was horrible.
In the narrative, the repeated fly-overs of a television helicopter provide
information about a now inaccessible place. The narrative is punctuated
by laughter, likely a commentary on the surreal nature of watching one's
parents' livelihood burn on television. An intriguing element of his
story-and stories like it-is the inaccessibility of the store. Here, what was
once coded as a Korean American business area is now recoded as a site of
violence. However, through the narrative's resolution, in which he accom-

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 160 WESTERN FOLKLORE

panies his father and other

isable to narratively reclaim
ceptually, of reestablishing
place.
Michael Lee, a student from Orange County, who was studying at
UCLA during the spring of 1992, provides the following account of the
riots, once again foregrounding the role television played in many Ange-
lenos' experience of the riots:
The whole shebang was on TV. And when I heard them mention
Koreatown, for some reason it kind of sounds bad, but it just didn't
hit me until the minute they said Koreatown, it hit home, right
there. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I know that street," or, you know,
"I know that store that is getting burned down," because when you
see it and when you've been there before and when you know it, it's
a whole different thing. I just heard that it was centralizing around
Koreatown and I took that personally. For the first time it really hit
me personally. I have friends' parents who have stores there, and also
I have distant family members that live there or live right next to
there. My ex-girlfriend, her parents live only fifteen or twenty minutes
away from there, so it was kind of scary. I just remember being
really shocked about it and then I remember the next couple of days
with the Korean shop owners taking control, and you know how they
have guns and things like that and they were on top of their roofs,
protecting their stores. I remember some of my friends who were non
Koreans saying, "That's so stupid, why are they doing that? They
shouldn't be out there." Whatever. And I felt like for some reason I

just knew I would have done the same thing if I was in their position
because they come here--what other people don't understand is that
they come here with nothing and they spend their whole lives build-
ing those shops and to see it go down without them, being helpless
it just doesn't seem right. That store is their life basically. There's a
reason why there's a Koreatown and the whole idea about being
Korean is important. You can't forget the Korean in Korean Amer-
ican.

In his account, Michael points out the importance of Koreatown as a touch-

stone for ethnic identity. He admits to having little experience in Kore-
atown itself, instead noting the role that the area plays as a conceptual
category. When he encounters the images of Korean businesses burning
on the television-and the passionate defense of those businesses by
masked Korean Americans-he feels that his identity as a Korean American

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 REMAPPING KOREATOWN 161

is under attack. His narrative a

image of Koreatown-and thus m
the area-and the image of the rio
forceful remapping of that are
American identity.
Among the most common stor
detailed aspects of the police re
this oft-repeated story:
Well, you know, a lot of peop
Americans were wondering, why
so hard. And it turns out that w
ricaded different roads. They di
to downtown, or to places like
ple live, and so they more or l
East of Koreatown with barricad
coming up from South Centra
the amazing thing is, is that t
much considered those place
respond to cries for help comi
why there was so much damag
This story was quite popular in th
informants from as far away as N
sions, such as the following told b
YMP: Did you hear what happe
TRT: How could I avoid hearin
YMP: No, do you know what the
pened in Koreatown? I heard
police blocked off all the streets
and around USC, so all of the rioters were funneled into Kore-
atown. You see, there was no way for them to go but to Koreatown,
and once they got there, they couldn't go any further, so all of the
looting and violence got centered in Koreatown.
The story appeals to concepts of the spatial organization of the town, as
well as the notion that the town is threatened by the Other-in this case,
people from other ethnically and geographically defined communities. The
narratives also highlight the perception among many Korean Americans
that, despite their impressive economic and social gains over the past thirty
years, they have yet to be accorded the same status-and protections-that
other, predominantly white, groups enjoy. The narratives work simulta-
neously as a mapping of the town and as an expression of outrage. In this

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 162 WESTERN FOLKLORE

sense, the stories are deep

space and the hegemonic
Angeles. Interestingly, jus
the protest movements of
invoke similar references to narratives of dissent and resistance from

Korea. Perhaps the clearest link that can be drawn is one between t
Los Angeles narratives of non-response and, in some cases, conspirat
neglect and those concerning the Kwangju uprising in 1980 in Sou
Korea.

Stories about the Kwangju uprisings often mention the role that
American government played in the tragic events (Clark 1988; Chang 19
Pak 1990, 225-253; Han'guk kija hy6phoe 1997).16 In these stories,
rators emphasize that the American military first released ROK troops
Cholla province and later refused to intervene in what clearly had beco
a massacre (Clark 1988; Chang 1988; Pak 1990, 225-253; Han'guk
hyOphoe 1997). These stories of non-response to violent event
clearly defined place-Kwangju as the capital of Cholla province is
sidered by many the spatial center for the minjung movement-res
remarkably well with the Los Angeles stories of non-response and, in t
most extreme cases, government collusion in the targeted destruct
Koreatown. In both cases, blame for the tragedy is laid squarely at the
of American authorities. Of course, in Kwangju, the attackers were
ernment soldiers whereas in Los Angeles, they were an ill-defined
largely amorphous group of citizens. In a bizarre refiguration of st
about the collusion between American and Korean authorities in Kwang
several of my informants told me stories that the Korean government
sent a special detachment of riot police to train and equip the Los A
les Police Department. While these narratives clearly represent an extre
position, stories about police refusing to respond or deliberately blo
streets to funnel the progress of the riots into Koreatown echo the
sations leveled at the American military in Kwangju, namely a refu
respond to cries for help emanating from the citizenry of Kwangju and
some accounts, surrounding the city while the government tr
"mopped up" within the city's borders. In both cases-Los Angeles
Kwangju-the narrators, through their frequent appeal to place name
other features of the man-made environment, not only map the
ceived injustices onto a now politically charged space, but also reconstit
that space-at least in the narrative-despite the very destruction of
space.
Far more dramatic than the riot narratives told by those who wit-
nessed the events on television are those told by people who were in Kore-

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 163

atown during the actual events.

bers of the Korean Young Adu
participated in the protection
during the height of the riots.1
orate narrative of Kim Min-ki,
inal aspect of the riot experien
identity and place. Kim Min-ki t
the riots, the narrative occasion
dations by another member of
During the riots, the Nation
stayed out of Koreatown. At fi
ern, because Koreatown, bef
Nobody lived here, there were
is very important for our peop
were protecting it. A bit past
were blocking the intersec
were swearing at us, so one of
into the air. Then at Normand
section, we had some more trouble. The rioters came and our
members were protecting the stores, and so we were fighting over
there. So we had something like two or three people injured there,
they had gunshot wounds. Then we went over to Olympic and Ver-
mont, at the corner there, people were robbing and looting, so we
went over there and shot up into the air. Not at the people. We shot
into the air.

Then we heard about things happening just on the border of

South Central, that a store was being looted, so two of our team
members went over there and we had some more problems. That was
our first encounter with the police. The police arrested some of our
team members. That was the first time. So, on the first day, we
were over at Eighth and Vermont-there's a store there called Cosmos
Electric-and they started to loot. Now one of our guys there had a
.38 revolver, and so he shot about six times into the air, and so all the
looters left. They went somewhere. They got scared away.
On the second day we were still protecting our town, Koreatown.
I think there was a fire for the first time in the town, somewhere
between Third and Fourth streets, on New Hampshire. They had
built an apartment building there, it was under construction, and
somebody lit that on fire. That was the first fire in Koreatown.
Nobody lived there and the firemen didn't come, because on the first

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164 WESTERN FOLKLORE

day, I'd heard, when the f

man, so the firemen wo
Kaju Market, or near to K
tried to loot, but since ou
was very close to the gun
air. One of our members
under the store sign, and
o'clock, we heard that a
Street and Oxford, the n
roof, and they were pro
There are some departmen
protecting that area. Th
Oxford. These other guy
know that, since it was
that we were looters, th
The employees of the st
knows his name, and an
guys were wounded, I do
Then over at Western an
station, we were protect
dead now, his nickname
he protected our town..
and he went over there an
ple and chased them awa
jeering and were swearin
hit them and then he came back to the store. He was a leader of the

protectors of the gas station. I liked him a lot, but after the riot he got
killed. He got shot and was killed.
Then on the third day I went out on patrol at about midnight. I
went downtown. My car is an estate wagon, so there were seven of us
in it, we had white head bands around our head. We went downtown,
but downtown was very quiet then, nothing was happening because
there were a lot of police patrols. But in our town there were almost
no police. No police. Then on the third day we were protecting Kaju
market, on the rooftop. Other days were a little better than the first
three days. After the riot, I had a lot of nightmares about the riots for
three days. Somebody was trying to kill me. I had a gun and bullets
and everything, but when I tried to shoot, the bullets were too
small, so when I put them into the gun, they'd just slide through. I
had these dreams for like three days. Other members still have

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REMAPPING KOREATOWN 165

nightmares about the riots.

The account, which at times sou
intersections than anything else
within that space challenges to t
story--a running chronology
mates" within the threatened la
of their "town" and protectors
community. Without doubt, t
events that were largely unstr
time. Interestingly, the coheren
mined and mapped almost en
The retelling of events many
purposes. On one level, the narr
of watchful readiness among th
ration, were still actively en
1991:869). In the context of t
team-the narrative was used
Many of the team members exp
lar to the 1992 riots would likel
they vowed that this time they
level, the narrative traces the f
the narrator expresses it-the
identity of the physical space. O
places that weathered the storm
that were destroyed by the ri
Koreatown. On a final level, by
response to Korean American
trastssharply with the effect
mates), the narrator construc
"them" or Korean American v
both the narrative and the locat
itics of ethnicity and class in la
An even closer connection be
the story of another informa
American defense group. He told
atown, linking the narrative flo
this drive. At times stopping an
ries of particular events that ha
from one riot destination to th
riots, punctuated by accounts of

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 166 WESTERN FOLKLORE

the problems of class an

ries, locational cues clearl
very location they had
onto the landscape. Ultim
ratively peripatetic recou
of Koreatown and its c
narrative and the physica
the agency of those wh
those businesses where th
charged the physical en
sense of identity so fun
atown.

The narrative response among Korean Americans to the

riots reveals the close connections between place and iden
aftermath of the riots, when Korean American identity had
threatened by the physical destruction of the built environme
ity to recall in narrative both the earlier Koreatown as well as
defense and resistance allowed narrators a chance to begin r
Korean American identity onto the now charred and splin
scape. Events such as the demonstration march on May 2 furth
the close connection between identity and place. By performing
charged expressions such as the playing of p'ungmul, the weari
headbands and the chanting of rhythmic slogans, Korean
were able to provide visual and sonic expressions that emph
atown as a site for Korean American identity formation, despite
ible erasure from the landscape of the previously ubiquito
signage. Riot narratives that told of government collusion o
heightened the link to Korean narratives of resistance fami
Kwangju uprising of 1980. Although Abelmann and Lie poin
fully to "a fundamental lesson...for many Korean Americans... [
their focus from South Korea to America" (Abelmann and
185), at least in some of the articulation of resistance immediat
the riots, there was a frequent appeal to the "Korean in Korean
as my informant Michael Lee said. In the riot narratives,
remapping Koreatown, and establishing Koreatown as a cent
Korean American identity in Southern California, many Korean
narrators put the emphasis decidedly on Los Angeles. A
rebuilding of Los Angeles did not get under way in earnest
months after the riots, by that time, Koreatown had a
reclaimed, remapped and in a sense rebuilt as a site for the

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 REMAPPING KOREATOWN 167

Korean American identity thro

expressions in Koreatown and t
of riot related personal experie

Notes

I would like to thank Henry Em, Stephen Epstein and Sojin Kim for
comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

1 The Watts rebellion in 1965 was, according to Soja and Scott, "the most violent
upheaval in American history up to that time" (Scott and Soja 1996: 11). See
also Totten and Shockman (1994: xvi). While it is difficult to compare the
destructiveness of the two events, the monetary damage during the 1992
riots far outstripped that of the 1965 rebellion (Fogelson 1969).
2 The first recorded episode of violence did not occur in South Central, but in
Hyde Park, an area to the east of the intersection of Florence Avenue and Nor-
mandie Avenue (Jencks 1993: 79). Jencks provides excellent maps showing th
extent of the riots coupled to maps showing income distribution. See also Alan-
Williams (1994) for a far-reaching account of the progress of the violence
3According to a report on losses from the riots, Koreatown and South Centra
were two of the areas hardest hit by the convulsive violence of the riots (On
and Hee 1993).
4 Indeed, after the riots, parts of Los Angeles had gone far beyond the "trans-
portation palimpsest" suggested by architect Reyner Banham, and had now
become community palimpsests (Banham 1971: 75-91; Dear 1996: 93).
5 See Edward Park's discussion of these efforts in the context of political mobi-
lization among Korean Americans in the aftermath of the riots (1998: 45-47).
Many of these efforts to "rebuild" Los Angeles were criticized from within the
various communities they were intended to help. For a criticism of "Rebuild
LA" from a Korean American attorney, for example, see Oh 1993.
6 For general considerations of the history of Korean immigration to the United
States, and Koreans in America, see Patterson and Kim (1977), Choy (1979)
and Barringer and Cho (1989). An early history of Koreans in Los Angeles can
be found in Givens (1939).
7 See also Foucault (1986).
8 See also Davis (1992).
9 The notion of the "simulacra" comes primarily from the writings ofJean Bau-
drillard. See, for example, Baudrillard 1984.
10 Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Koreatown is that people of
Korean heritage constitute a minority of the population, with Latinos making
up approximately 68% of its population in 1990 (Yu 1993: 157; Abelman
and Lie 1995: 105; Ong and Hee 1993: 8).

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 168 WESTERN FOLKLORE

11 Abelmann and Lie (1995

12 Estimates for attendance
thousand, to the more com
13 One can find discussions
tives in Wells (1995). The u
movement has been explo
Dilling explores the use of
politics (1998).
14 A discussion of Chisin Palpgi as it is practiced in rural Korea can be found in
Minsokhakhoe 1994, 408.
15 Martin Stokes considers a similar sonic mapping that occurs in Northern Ire-
land through the tactical deployment of politically motivated lambeg drumming
in contested neighborhoods (1994: 9).
16 The labeling of the events in Kwangju as a "hangjaeng" or struggle, the stan-
dard moniker used in contemporary Korea to describe the events of May 18,
1980, brings to mind the at times heated debate over the naming of the
events in Los Angeles. Many people from progressive political groups referred
to the events as "The Los Angeles Uprisings." Nearly all of my Korean American
informants referred to the events in Los Angeles as a "riot" or, in Korean, "p'ok-
tong." When I suggested the terms "bonggi" (uprising) or "hangjaeng," my
informants generally reacted quite negatively.
17 Despite the illegality of some of their actions during the riots, members of the
group were quite willing to talk to me. I suspect this was in large part due to the
introduction I received to the group through a colleague who had been
working with them for several months.

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