Korean Americans Return to District Torn by Riots

Eight years after hundreds of Korean Americans lost their life savings in the fire and fury of the Los Angeles riots, a growing number of merchants are returning to South-Central and nearby areas, scenes of some of the worst firebombings and lootings.

Memories and scars of the riots’ devastation still linger, the images of those nightmarish days indelibly etched in the Korean American psyche in the term sa-ee-gu, meaning 4/29--or April 29, the start of the riots.

Korean-owned businesses lost an estimated $400 million in the three days of rioting in 1992, propelling horrified merchants to leave South-Central in droves, vowing never to return. The rioting erupted hours after a Simi Valley jury pronounced four police officers not guilty of using excessive force in the beating of Rodney G. King.

While many Korean riot victims continue to struggle with poor health, domestic problems and financial hardships brought on by sa-ee-gu, others have put the past behind them, finding viable economic opportunities in southern Los Angeles.

Quietly and largely unnoticed, many have come in from other neighborhoods and other vocations; others have rebuilt on the ashes of the riots--and are thriving.

Having learned costly lessons from the riots, Korean American grocers today are striving to avert cultural misunderstandings and improve relations with their primarily black and Latino customers. They smile more often and strike up conversations with customers, traits that do not come naturally in the Korean culture, which equates silence with dignity.

They are reaching out to their customers more and taking note of important events in the patrons’ lives.

Frank Yim, whose market was emptied by looters during the riots, makes sure he remembers birthdays, weddings--and especially funerals.

“Mr. Yim was very supportive when my sister died,” said Delores Morris, who has lived in South-Central most of her 43 years. Morris said Yim sent flowers and contributed food. He did the same thing when her uncle died.

These are experiences Yim did not even imagine were possible before sa-ee-gu, he said.

The improved economy, decreasing crime, better policing and continuing exchanges between black and Korean churches have also contributed to a greater sense of harmony.

Joe R. Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, says he is pleased with the progress he sees when he visits South-Central.

“It’s one of the better stories of improving human relations,” he said, “that hasn’t been told.”

A Warm Welcome

Friends of Sunae and Jang-Hwan Lee were incredulous when the two said last year that they were venturing into South-Central. “As if running a market in Gardena isn’t bad enough, you want to go to South-Central?” the friends chided the couple.

In many Korean minds, the neighborhood had become synonymous with high crime and troublesome customers.

The Lees said their anxiety about doing business in South-Central vanished when customers welcomed them warmly, addressing Sunae Lee as “Mama-san.” It didn’t matter that her well-meaning patrons were using the Japanese suffix san, denoting respect, to a Korean.

“We’re glad to be here,” said Sunae Lee as she waited on customers, conversing in English and Spanish. “Customers are good to us; we are quite satisfied.”

Sometimes, regular customers seem like part of their extended family, her husband said.

Interviews with more than two dozen grocers and visits to numerous establishments testify to changes in appearance and to exchanges taking place inside shops.

Largely gone are graffiti-scarred storefronts and young men loitering outside. Stores are cleaner inside and out. Pride of ownership is evident.

A big sign, “Thank You for Shopping Here” is the first thing that greets customers entering Kyung-Hoon Park’s Three Star Market and Liquor on South Avalon Boulevard.

Park, a former transmission parts salesman, is also a newcomer to South-Central. He bought his store 18 months ago and remodeled and expanded it.

Park has an experienced Korean American manager, and like other merchants, has taken steps to hire non-Koreans for his staff. He is so optimistic about his business prospects in the area that he is looking to invest in more markets.

Residents and shopkeepers said they used to hear gunshots, even at dusk. These days, residents walk to markets at night. LAPD crime statistics corroborate the impression of safer streets. Robberies in the area, for example, have declined consistently in the last three years.

“We haven’t had any problem in the year and half we’ve been here,” said Park.

Willie Grayson, an African American customer whose relationship with the store predates the present owner, agreed.

Troublemakers “don’t hang out like they used to,” he said. “There isn’t much drinking outside in the neighborhood.”

Grayson said he feels safe walking to the store, even at night. “It’s better--friendlier,” he said. “A lot of people get along.”

Attractive Investments

Real estate agents say Korean Americans with access to a lot of capital still prefer to invest in Koreatown, the Mid-Wilshire District, the Westside, the San Fernando Valley and the South Bay. But for those with limited capital, South-Central and other inner-city neighborhoods offer attractive investment opportunities because leases and rents are cheaper.

“Koreans want to work for themselves,” said real estate man Richard Kim, president of BCI in Koreatown. As soon as they can get together enough money--$50,000 or so--they’re ready to buy a $100,000 business, he said.

In the past several years, Koreans have bought more than 100 businesses in South-Central alone, bringing to about 400 the total number of Korean-owned businesses there, according to Ellis Cha, president of the Korean American Grocers Assn.

That’s a significant increase since the riots’ immediate aftermath, when the number of Korean-owned stores fell from 500 to fewer than 300, according to the grocers group, which has 1,100 dues-paying members in Los Angeles County and 4,000 statewide.

Liquor license records at the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board confirm the trend. An analysis of the records issued for businesses in Los Angeles County shows that Koreans are buying establishments in South-Central at a brisk rate--more than any other ethnic group.

Dal-Yong Lee, who buys run-down markets, fixes them up and resells them, says he can’t keep up with the demand. Criticized as being unfriendly and rude before the riots, Korean Americans are striving to earn a more positive image.

“How are you doin’ today, my son?” a Korean American store keeper said to a familiar African American customer in his 20s.”Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I moved, man,” the African American said.

“Give me your phone number then, son,” the Korean American said, handing over a sheet of paper.

The customer obliged with a smile. “Bye, Papa-san,” he said as he sauntered out of the store.

Such outward signs of friendliness are no simple undertaking for first-generation Korean Americans, who hail from a culture in which silence is golden and idle talk frowned on.

Shopkeepers are also conversing more in Spanish with Latino customers since the riots, the change coinciding with the increase in numbers of Spanish-speaking patrons in the area.

“My customers appreciate the fact that I speak Spanish to them,” said Elizabeth Kim, who with her husband, Benedict, owns Santa Fe Market in Huntington Park, another area popular with Korean American entrepreneurs.

Though a cultural gulf exists between Latinos and Koreans, their commonality as immigrants makes their encounters go more smoothly, Kim and other shopkeepers said.

Hicks said it took “a lot of work to see each other with honesty and engage in the hard work of building new relationships.”

What merchants have done is “sink roots into the community,” and they have responded to criticisms by being “more sensitive and intimate” with the communities they serve, Hicks said. For their part, residents more readily acknowledge a “vital function” that merchants perform, he said.

“I see a drastic improvement in the relationship between Koreans and African Americans,” said the Rev. Leonard Jackson of First AME Church. Jackson said his church’s choir now includes a handful of Korean Americans, and when he looks out at his large congregation on Sundays, he spots a group of Koreans.

“We are on the right track,” he said.

Economist Jack Kyser agreed: “If you go out into the community, what you see are people from all types of backgrounds living and working together side by side.”

On the economic front, the metropolitan area’s recovery from the riots is a “mixed bag,” said Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “We have come a good ways, but we haven’t come as far as you would like.”

Los Angeles County still has 140,000 fewer jobs than it did in December 1989, the region’s economic peak, Kyser said. Along with the riots, the area also was affected by corporate restructuring and the economic downturn of the early 1990s.

“We are going to all have to work together more effectively because, overall, the business environment is changing very rapidly,” Kyser said. “It’s going to take innovative thinking.”

No Bitterness

Before sa-ee-gu, Jae-Yul Kim, 56, owner of One Stop Mart at Arlington and 43rd streets, was worth millions on paper, in contrast to most Korean merchants, who operated on thin margins. He owned two businesses, including a sizable lot, and an Encino home with a swimming pool and tennis courts.

In less than two decades in the United States, he had made it. But arsonists set his market on fire and he hit a downward economic spiral.

Today, Jae-Yul Kim, standing behind his meat counter wearing a red apron, shrugs when he says that he cannot even buy a new van he needs.

“Because of my credit, they want me to pay 19.5% interest on a car loan,” he said. So he had his 1980 Ford Econoline repaired.

Taking a deep breath, he said with a sheepish smile, “That’s how it is with us.”

Despite all the losses he and his wife, Nina, suffered, they show no trace of bitterness.

He says sa-ee-gu has changed his philosophy.

“My business has gone from the place where I made money to the place where I live my life,” he said.

Helplessness that he and other riot victims felt after the upheaval also made him become more active in the community. He attends block meetings; he and other area Korean American grocers belong to the Boosters Club, which supports the local police.

In the pre-riot days, the Kims worked all their waking hours. But now, they take one day off every week, leaving the store to their son and in-laws.

He has become more Angeleno in other ways, too. A son and a daughter have married Mexican Americans. Kim has three racially mixed grandchildren.

Though interracial marriages are still eschewed in the Korean community, the Kims have come to accept it as an L.A. reality. “Sooner or later, we [in Los Angeles] will get all mixed up,” he said. “Our family is simply starting sooner.”

Lending Expertise

Korean Americans own tens of thousands of convenience stores in the United States, from Los Angeles to New York.

“Koreans [immigrants] cannot find good jobs [commensurate] with their education because of the language and lack of experience in the mainstream,” said the grocer group’s Cha, explaining why so many choose to go into the business.

The group’s national membership, which includes about two-thirds of the store owners, is 23,500.

To help members improve their profit margins, association officials like Cha and Bong-Soo Lee have been lending their expertise.

Last year alone, Cha and Lee worked with more than 50 Korean American merchants to help improve their businesses. They analyzed businesses and recommended improvements ranging from reorganizing shelves to investing in better lighting and security.

Lee’s gross income from his Daily Market business has grown steadily since he expanded his store. He attributes his success to being attentive to his customers.

“Before sa-ee-gu, I felt resentful toward customers who bought only the things at my store that were cheaper than in other stores,” he said. “But my changed attitude has enabled me to remind myself, ‘I should be grateful that they bought anything at all.’ ”

He tells other grocers that they can’t go wrong addressing customers “Yes, sir,” and “Yes, ma’am,” especially when they are difficult.

One woman who frequents their store used to try to pick fights with his wife whenever the customer was in a bad mood, he said.

“My wife decided that no matter what she said she was going to respond, “Yes, ma’am.”

It worked, he said: “She used to call me ‘Hey, Lee.’ These days she calls me ‘Mr. Lee.’ ”