Analysis Of The Conflicts Between Korean And African Americans In The 1992 Los Angeles Riot

The 1992 Los Angeles Riot has been the US largest interethnic conflict since the 1960s, and it is the Korean Americans who suffered the most in the LA Riot triggered by a conflict between whites and blacks.The thesis aims to analyze its causes from the perspectives of social-economic conditions, demographic changes and interethnic communication. First, the conservative socio-economic policies and the industry restructuring took away from the underclass their welfare interests and job opportunities in the 1980s, and the gap between the rich and the poor was further widened. Second, the inrush of new immigrants led to changes in the US demographic composition, and the poorly educated blacks were gradually wiped off from the labor market by the newcomers. However, the Korean Americans, compared with other ethnic groups, attained social mobility by starting their own stores in the poor African neighborhoods. Their success was in stark contrast with the poverty of the African Americans. Third, the cultural difference also resulted in interethnic miscommunication between the two groups, and their daily encounters became an ongoing source of interethnic frictions and conflicts. What's worse, the media did not responsibly report the friction, thus failed to ameliorate the interethnic relations. The antagonism between the Korean and African Americans was nearly escalated to an explosive level, and the injustice of the trial of the Rodney King case eventually triggered the eruption of racial violence.With the rapid pace of globalization, immigration is growing faster and more diversified. The confrontation and conflicts between ethnic groups can not be avoided, and therefore governments, communities and media must make joint efforts to prevent the repetition of the same kind of tragedy.