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Caught in the Middle

University of California Press

On April 29, 1992, a predominantly White jury returned a "not guilty" verdict against four White police officers accused of beating an African American motorist, Rodney King, and ignited three days of rioting in Los Angeles that claimed 52 deaths, about 2,400 injuries, and $785 million worth of property damage. The multiethnic character of the riots and the disproportionately large number of Korean stores that were targets of destruction made the riots unique. Approximately 2,300 Korean-owned stores in South Central Los Angeles and Koreatown were burned and looted during three days of rioting. Korean merchants suffered $350 million worth of damage, 45% of the total riot damages. Conflicts between Koreans and African Americans had been the topic of headlines in recent years, yet the targeting of Korean merchants during the Los Angeles riots was a defining moment of Koreans' business-related conflicts with the African American community.

Korean-African American conflicts have been fully covered by the mainstream media. Not so well covered by the media, but sociologically important, is how these conflicts have increased solidarity in the Korean community. The day after the riots ended, thirty thousand Koreans in-Los Angeles held a rally for peace and solidarity. Korean Americans from all over the United States contributed more than $5 million to help the Korean riot victims. The Korean 4.29 Riot Victims Association organized daily rallies at the Los Angeles City Hall for over a month, at which an average of two hundred Korean riot victims participated.

The victimization of Korean merchants during the riots also heightened Koreans' political consciousness and second-generation Korean Americans' ethnic identity.

Although Korean-African American conflicts climaxed in the Los Angeles riots, they were occurring in other cities as well. Korean merchants also faced African American protests and boycotts in New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington and these conflicts have helped unify those Korean communities. The New York Korean community has encountered a number of long-term Blackb African American and Afro-Caribbeanb boycotts, and each has enhanced Korean ethnic solidarity. During the much-publicized 1990-91 Brooklyn boycott of two Korean stores, not only merchants but also many other Koreans in New York participated in fund-raising campaigns, collecting approximately $150,000 to help the "victims of Black racism against Koreans." They also supported the store owners by visiting their businesses and sending letters to them. Finally, dissatisfied with Mayor David Dinkins's "lukewarm" effort to terminate the boycott, the Korean community organized a demonstration in front of City Hall that drew approximately seven thousand Koreans.

Korean merchants are in conflict not only with African American customers but also with suppliers, landlords, and government agencies regulating small businesses. Again, the Korean merchants' conflicts with these powerful forces have enhanced their ethnic solidarity and sharpened their political skills. Using collective strategies such as boycotts, Korean merchants have confronted White suppliers and landlords: Korean trade associations in New York have organized a dozen demonstrations and boycotts against suppliers to protect their economic interests. They have also actively lobbied government agencies and politicians for less stringent regulation of small businesses.

Other immigrant groups are also active in small business, though not to the same extent. For example, Chinese immigrants in New York have created their own subeconomy, specializing in restaurants, garment subcontracting, and the retailing of jewelry and other Asian-imported goods (Kwong 1987; Zhou 1992, 95). Cuban immigrants in Miami have developed a high level of business in their enclave (Portes and Bach 1985; K. Wilson and Portes 1980). But neither group has encountered a level of business-related intergroup conflict comparable to that faced by Korean immigrants.

Why is it that Korean merchants have encountered multifaceted intergroup conflicts that have enhanced their ethnic solidarity, whereas

these other entrepreneurial groups have not? To answer this question, one needs to pay special attention to the location of major Korean businesses and the nature of their commercial activities. Many Korean immigrants run grocery, liquor, produce, and fish retail businesses, and these businesses are heavily concentrated in minority neighborhoods. Korean merchants rely mostly on White suppliers. Like the Jews in Europe, the Chinese in Southeast Asia, and the Indians in African countries (Eitzen 1971; Palmer 1957; Zenner 1991), Korean merchants in the United States play the role of a "middleman" minority between low-income, minority consumers and large companies, often distributing merchandise made by predominantly White-owned corporations to African American and Latino customers. In this economic role, Korean immigrants encounter a high level of business-related conflicts with both customers and White suppliers. Korean men and women engage in middleman businesses more than any other immigrant group and thus are more likely to be involved in intergroup conflicts and to have developed collective strategies to protect their economic interests.

Before the early 1970s, Korean immigrant businesses attracted little public attention; what the majority of Americans knew about Korea and Koreans came mainly through their memories of the Korean War and movies such as M * A* S* H. It was the Immigration Act of 1965 that brought the mass influx of Korean immigrants to the United States. From 1976 to 1990, an annual average of 30,000-35,000 Koreans immigrated to the United States (see chapter 3 for details). In the 1970s and 1980s, Koreans were the third largest immigrant group, following Mexicans and Filipinos. The prospect of a higher standard of living and a better opportunity for their children's education motivated many Koreans to choose trans-Pacific migration. But military, political, and economic connections between the United States and South Korea were also important factors in explaining why South Korea sent more immigrants to the United States than did other Asian countries, such as India and China, during this period.

As a result of a large influx of new immigrants, the Korean American population increased from 70,000 in 1970 to approximately 800,000 in 1990. Southern California, connecting Los Angeles and Orange Counties, is the largest residential center with approximately 250,000

Koreans. Koreans in Los Angeles have established Koreatown three miles west of downtown. More recently, many immigrants have relocated to suburban areas in Orange County. The New York-New Jersey area, the home of approximately 150,000 Koreans, is the second largest Korean center. In the 1980s, both the Los Angeles-Orange County and New York-New Jersey metropolitan areas experienced higher rates of Korean population growth than did the United States as a whole.

Post-1965 Korean immigrants, like other post-1965 Asian immigrants, are characterized by their urban, middle-class backgrounds and their high...