Tag: Los Angeles

Here is a good article about the history of L.A.’s Koreatown:

The 2.7 square miles known as Koreatown is a happy mix of flashing neon lights, nondescript office buildings that house innovative restaurants and dark nightclubs, and eclectic shops in old Art Deco buildings papered with signs written in hangul. The densely packed neighborhood is home to more than 120,000 residents, around 20 percent of Korean heritage. And even though the majority of its population is Latino, Koreatown—the first and most famous Koreatown in the U.S.—retains a distinctly Korean air. As Helen Lee, daughter of Koreatown’s late founder Hi Duk Lee, says: “It’s the best Koreatown outside of Korea.”

The story of Koreans in America starts in the late 19th century. A slow trickle of exiled social reformers had arrived in San Francisco in the 1880s. According to Los Angeles’s Koreatown, in 1902, philosopher, activist and political dissident Chang Ho Ahn and his wife, Hye Ryeon (Helen), became the first married Korean couple to come to America. In January 1903, the SS Gaelic arrived in Hawaii, bringing around 100 Korean immigrants fleeing famine and political turmoil. After the Japanese formally annexed Korea in 1910, more Koreans, including students, picture brides, and political refugees, immigrated to America, settling in San Francisco, before migrating down to Southern California to work in farming communities such as Riverside and Claremont.
Chang Ho Ahn, now the leader of the Korean independence movement and founder of the Korean National Association, eventually settled with his young family in a large, rambling Victorian house at 106 North Figueroa Avenue on Bunker Hill in Downtown LA. According to Katherine Yungmee Kim, historian and author of Los Angeles’s Koreatown and senior communication editor at the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, a small Korean enclave of around 300 people grew up around the house. 
“The first community was in Bunker Hill,” Kim says. “That’s where the Methodist Mission was, and that’s where Chang Ho Ahn’s family house was. That family house was hugely important. It was sort of a rooming house, a consulate, job training—everything all in one place for the community.”

Curbed

You can read more at the link.

Condolences to the family of this Korean woman killed by this animal in Los Angeles:

An American gang member has been arrested for fatally shooting a Korean woman in Los Angeles.

The tragedy happened Aug. 8.

Devon White, 20, approached Oh Hye-soon, 67, who was leaving her business in Lynwood around 8:40 p.m. He allegedly tried to steal her belongings but the woman resisted, which led to a scuffle. White then shot her, according to reports. The man was caught on Aug. 17 and is being held at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.

Glendale Police Sgt. Robert William said Oh was found next to a car in the garage of an apartment complex. She had been shot once.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible experience this Korean mother and daughter just went through:

Two women visiting from Korea were robbed and one was beaten unconscious in the parking lot of a Placentia hotel on Friday, June 16, authorities said.

Placentia police officers were dispatched to the Best Western motel, 118 E. Orangethorpe Ave., about 9:30 p.m. When officers arrived, they found a 55-year-old woman on the ground with signs of trauma and a 25-year-old woman unharmed. The women were a mother and daughter visiting from Korea, according to Sgt. Bryce Angel of the Placentia Police Department.

When the two women arrived at their hotel, a navy blue 4-door sedan parked next to their car. Two men got out of the car and one person stayed behind the wheel, Angel said. One man attempted to grab the mother’s purse, which she had slung over her shoulder. The man tried to violently rip the purse from her, but the woman put up a struggle.

As they wrestled over the purse, the other man pointed a handgun at the woman. The suspects pushed the older woman to the ground and were able to get the purse away from her, Angel said.

The suspects continued to punch and kick the victim, who was lying on the ground, until she lost consciousness. The daughter was not physically harmed, Angel said.  [OC Register]

You can read more at the link as well as watch video about this assault at this link.

I was watching on the Smithsonian app “The Lost Tapes: LA Riots” which had a lot of never before seen footage of the riots that happened 25 years ago in response to the Rodney King verdict.  You can watch the entire episode at the above link.  What I found of interest was the amount of footage featuring the attacks on Koreans in Los Angeles.  This fact is often glossed over by the media when discussing the riots.  Rioters were specifically targeting Korean businesses in retaliation for the shooting death of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shop owner during a confrontation.

The incompetent police response also featured heavily in the program because the first day of the riot they initially responded to rioters and then were ordered to pull out.  Once they pulled out the gangbangers went on a rampage robbing stores and eventually other people joined in.  By the second day the rioters had advanced on Koreatown and still the police would not respond.  They left the Koreans to fend for themselves while they defended more affluent white neighborhoods.  Due to the police not responding the firefighters stopped responding as well because they kept getting shot at when they tried to put out the fires.  There was plenty of footage of shot up firetrucks.

The Korean shop owners had to take up arms to defend Koreatown from the rioters which is what saved that section of the city from being burned down.  While this was going on Jesse Jackson was on the radio saying that he believed many of the fires were caused by people trying to get insurance payouts and not from rioters.

CNN recently published an article that discusses how little attention the attacks on Koreans during the riot received from the media:

The nearly weeklong, widespread rioting killed more than 50 people, injured more than 1,000 people and caused approximately $1 billion in damage, about half of which was sustained by Korean-owned businesses. Long-simmering cultural clashes between immigrant Korean business owners and predominately African-American customers spilled over with the acquittals.

The Rodney King verdict and the ensuing riots are often framed as a turning point for law enforcement and the African-American community. But it’s also the single most significant modern event for Korean-Americans, says Edward Taehan Chang, professor of ethnic studies and founding director of the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Via a reader tip comes news of this horrible attack that some are now trying to use to further the narrative that Korean men have a misogyny and problem with violently attacking women:

The 22-year-old South Korean man in a black T-shirt asked one question of the young woman before bludgeoning her repeatedly with a hammer.

“Are you Korean?”

Much about the random attack last Friday at a Koreatown strip mall remains unclear, but police said Thursday one thing seemed apparent: Jae Won Yang chose his victim because she was Korean, and a woman.

Last week’s attack, in front of a second-floor acupuncture clinic, has reverberated across the Pacific Ocean to rattle nerves and grab headlines in South Korea. The incident set off online debates about whether it was the latest in violent attacks against women in recent years that have triggered soul-searching about misogyny in the Asian nation.  [LA Times]

You can read and see the video of the attack at the link.

Here are my thoughts on this, if people want to debate misogyny and violence against women in Korea fine, but don’t twist incidents to prove the point.  For example the big incident that has been used recently to “prove” this point was the violent murder of a woman in the Gangnam district of Seoul last year.  However, what the activists pushing this narrative do not mention is that the Gangman murderer for years was in and out of mental hospitals and became homeless because his family could no longer handle caring for him due to his mental illness.  The guy was certifiably crazy, not a misogynist.

This guy with the hammer attack we don’t know what his motive is yet.  Maybe he hates Korean women and decided to just randomly attack one with a hammer.  If so then the activists have their case they can champion to prove their point.  However, maybe this guy is someone else with a background of mental illness.  This statement in the article seems to suggest that:

Kim, who met with Yang after his arrest, said the man was rambling and nonsensical about the motive behind the attack. He does not speak any English, Kim said.

I am sure that as more facts come out this guy’s motive will become more clear, but in the meantime instead making unsubstantiated claims of misogyny lets all hope the victim of this horrible attack is able to make a speedy recovery.

It looks like Koreatown in Los Angeles is about to have its very own Korean-American museum:

The proposed Korean American National Museum, expected to sit in the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, upon completion, has found an architecture design adviser in noted architect Eui-sung Yi, 47.

Yi, a professor, director of UCLA’s The Now Institute and design principal at Morphosis Architects, previously oversaw the completion of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo and the Korean Consulate in Guangzhou, China.

In 2013, the project received a permanent site from the city of Los Angeles on the corner of Vermont Avenue and 6th Street. The museum, originally planned for a three-story, 45,000-square-foot structure, will preserve and educate future generations on Korean American history and culture.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Los Angeles Police Department officers enjoy Korean food at an event to experience Korean culture at the Korean Culture Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2015. (Yonhap)