As I was thumbing through the yellow-tinged musty copies of the 1991 Korea Time English Edition, my weary roaming eyes caught the screaming banner headline atop — Fire Next Time?
That was the year before South Central LA and the adjoining Koreatown burned and choked for four consecutive days and nights.
Today’s LA Koreatown is like, as an old Korean saying goes, woomul-annae-gaegori “frogs in the well” gleefully oblivious to the gathering dark storm above. How easily people of Hahn-Pulli forget.
That sinking feeling of déją vu hits you in the pit of your stomach.
Eight years later, merrily and riotously the frogs-in-the-well good times roll on at least on the surface, although the bulk of our fellow immigrants are stoically engaged in their dawn-to-midnight Sisyphean existence as subterranean survivors.
Shouting “the fire next time” is like whispering in the wind, or shouting in the echoless chamber.
“These are fearful times,” the year-before-Sa-ee-gu editorial warned in the fiery aftermath of the Latasha Harlins tragedy. “Are the non-English speaking Korean settlements across the land prepared for another media-fanned racial fire?
“These volatile hours cry out for the best available resources the Korean community can mobilize to reverse the tide of fear and alienation and to build bridges of good will with the African American community.
“Yet the Korean American community continues to remain fragmented and isolated — without a consensus or direction.
“Throughout the country, there are thousands of American-educated professionals pursuing their careers in law, medicine, finance, education, science, art and government sectors, but only a few of them have volunteered to contribute to the interethnic bridge-building process critical to the very survival of the emerging immigrant community.”
The Day-After-the-Siege the front-page editorial spelled out what must be done to heal the wounds and prevent another Sa-ee-gu as 30,000 fellow countrymen and supporters marched along the still smoldering streets of Koreatown:
“These immediate tasks face us:
“Demand the prompt investigation in alleged civil rights violations involving Korean American merchants in the riot and elsewhere.
“Mobilize the best available resources such as lawyers, physicians, engineers, scientists and professors to help rebuild thousands of riot victims.
“Form a national Korean American anti-defamation league to help combat bigotry, hatred and ignorance in the mainstream media.
“Convene a national meeting of dedicated community leaders and activists to discuss short-range and long-range strategies in dealing with governments, African American and Hispanics and other Asian groups.
The LA riots dared the fragmented Korean America across this continent to wake up and act in unity. The immediate local response was full of promise. But the historical “hot-and-cold” and divisive syndrome inevitably popped its ugly head. Soon everything would be forgotten. And nothing of purpose and direction developed.
Throughout, conspicuous was the absence of the American-educated elites who number hundreds of thousands, when it came to life-threatening crises affecting non-English-speaking fellow immigrants in the tense urban centers. Except for the painfully familiar faces of a “Splendid Few” professionals who would share the burden of thankless bridge-building chores.
As I recall, at the height of the Korean bashing in LA, only one letter of protest by a Korean American appeared on the LA Times editorial page. That lone letter was penned by a UCLA student whose father ran a store in South Central LA.
Not surprisingly, a 1996 Los Angeles Human Relations Commission study was moved to observe: “Unlike those of Chinese descent, LA’s Korean community is ... considerably fractured. Consequently, it is difficult to develop leaders to speak for the Korean community as a whole....
“This lack of a strong, community-based mediating organization may be an important factor complicating relations between Koreans and the rest of Los Angeles.”
Since the “Never Again” editorial manifesto of 1992, the sun has long set on the 20th century.
And the first year of the new millennium is about to drift into the LA smog of merciful forgetfulness.
“The Fire Next Time?” It’s that déją vu time again.

A pioneer Asian American journalist and the former editor of The Korea Times English Edition, K.W. Lee has been invited again to lecture a course on “Investigative Journalism—Communities of Color: Exploring California Pacific Rim Mosaic” at UCLA this fall.