By K. W. Lee

Remember that forlorn figure of a Chinese youth on TV screen in a death-defying David-Goliath standoff, daring the rolling tanks at Beijing? blood-drenched Tiananmen Square?

The world stood still at that heart-stopping moment.

With the 10th anniversary of Sa-ee-gu looming ahead, I remember another lonely figure?hat UCLA student, a Korean grocer? son, who penned a heart-rending letter of protest to the Los Angeles Times at the height of the local media-fanned open season on hapless fellow immigrants.

? fear for my father? safety and well-being because of the way the media have
perpetuated the problem existing in South Central Los Angeles, Soo Hyun Lim wrote then-Editor Shelby Coffey, whose only paper in town was engaged in a marathon race-baiting, pitting one politically powerful but economically frustrated minority against a seemingly thriving tribe of non-English-speaking newcomers.

That was a year before LA Koreatown burned and choked through three days of firebombing, looting and mayhem, the mother of all riots in this land of freedom.

Soo Hyun Lim? happened to be the only letter from Korean Americans appearing in the Time? editorial page during the darkest hours of Korean American history, while their American-educated elites remained silent and aloof from the bedraggled hole-in-the-wall storekeepers under pogrom-like siege.

?y father is a Korean American merchant in South Central L.A. and as his son, I fear for his life every day. Both minority groups are trying hard to endure their cultural differences and are having a difficult time just surviving, Lim said.

?owever, the media consistently misrepresents how these groups exists
which in turn is pitting African Americans and Korean Americans against each other. Yet this friction is what both groups are trying so hard to overcome.

It? no accident Soo Hyun Lim is a product of UCLA, the longtime spawning ground for a steady stream of second-generation Korean American activists who returned home to fight on social and political action fronts, representing probably the most misperceived and maligned ethnic group in the country.

A decade later at a time when Sa-ee-gu is all but forgotten among today? Korean American youth the spirit of Soo Hyun Lim is very much alive among some children of Sa-ee-gu at his alma mater. Because of their baptism of fire in their adolescent years, latter-day Soon Hyun Lims are still haunted by their memories of the fiery siege and ever determined to work toward building bridges with Latino and African American neighbors.

This past fall at UCLA at least eight ?hildren of Sa-ee-gu enrolled in my course entitled Investigative Journalism: Exploring California? Subterranean PacRim Mosaic. It? an experimental class where students of all colors were required to forge interethnic teamwork in exploring cutting-edge issues (conflict and cooperation) affecting communities of color in LA? seething urbanscape and writing about their findings for the campus and community media.

Sa-ee-gu, I?e come to learn through their writings, has a lot to do with why these Korean-American students have chosen my annual course.

On that day of chaos and fires everywhere, design major Joyce Chon was in her sixth grade gym class in K-town when her father came to take her home.

?y heart quickened as I wondered what kind of emergency would cause my
dad to fish me out of school.

?hen we got home the doors and windows were immediately locked. The
television was ablaze with special reports, and the Korean radio was turned up even louder than usual for my parents to hear.

?y dad pulled out his hunting rifle and a box of bullets that I?e never seen before. He placed them both by the balcony window.

?he violence finally had gotten to Koreatown. That evening I saw a small
shopping center, located a block away, was engulfed in flames. I never saw a fire that big before. I was afraid it would reach us. No fire trucks came. In fact I heard no sirens of any kind at all.

(The next morning) I ventured outside with my parents. Taking those first steps outside my apartment was pretty scary. The sight of the charred empty lot was surreal. That building housed a Numero Uno Pizzeria that my mom and I would frequent. I got my haircuts from the beauty salons located on the second floor. All of it was gone.

?he area seemed strangely quiet. Everybody was stunned. Eventually the silence would break when small business owners came to see the damage. Some yelled, others wailed. I recognized one woman as the owner of the beauty salon. She used to cut my hair

? don? hear many people talk about the riots anymore. It was a pretty big marker in my life. .. I get angry, but I don? know at whom I should be angry. Should I be angry with the looters? They have no right to destroy other people? property. I could blame Korean merchants for treating their non-Korean customers badly. Then again, I could also be mad at the media for pitting the Koreans against blacks.

Joyce Chon sums up: ?ho? at fault and where are the solutions? Although I haven? sorted out my feelings, I do know one thing: the LA Riots ignited a fire inside me that I don? know how to put out.

Campus activist Theresa Kang was 13 and scared to death when riots erupted in South Central where her father owned a video store. ?ll I remember was that I hated it when my dad would go there in the heart of South Central during the riots, recalls Kang who serves as the vice president of the Korean Students Association. ?hile my dad? store didn? get ravaged or burned down, it led to a chain of events which would change my family? life.

?ooking back, I suppose it was all for the best. Before the riots I was your
typical little spoiled Korean girl, oblivious to what was going on. I shall never deny my family and what we have been through. I will also remember how my family went bankrupt, and how I refused to let my parents put the ?or sale sign on our front lawn. I will never forget how my father paced silently outside our home, distressed at having lost his grasp on his American Dream.

?or it is these very memories that I treasure. These struggles which I embrace. Though I am uncertain of what the future holds, I know I have been blessed; blessed to be Korean, blessed to be American, and certainly blessed to be a woman, bearer of life. And I know this final thing: I will never be tempted to dream of being someone else.

A few years older and perhaps a bit more knowledgeable, graduate student Susie Woo has been on a journey of redemption ever since that fateful day when her people witnessed their American Dream go up in smoke.

On Sa-ee-gu, then a freshman at UC-Irvine, ? lay in my dorm-room bed shivering and sick with the flu. The phone rang. Between sobs my mom asked me if I had seen the news. I told her I hadn?, as I reached over to turn on the TV.

? Latino male ran by with an armful of shoes and electronic equipment. An African American male teen, no older than 16, followed behind him and actually paused a moment to smile for the camera before running off with his stolen goods. Broken glass covered the sidewalks and flames licked at buildings as smoke billowed from windows.

? tried to calm my mom down. She begged me to call the news stations and go speak on behalf of all Koreans. ?ou America, she said, ?ou have responsibility to go on TV and look smart and say something for all Korean people.

? did not do anything.

? never realized how deeply this event would affect me. To this day I am still ashamed by inability to act. After all, my mother didn? expect me to save the world. She simply wanted me to take a stand for what she and my father believed to have been true when they immigrated to this country in 1969. They once had hope and faith in a just America.

?t was through my experiences working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that I was able to, in a very small way, make up for my previous shortcomings. Working with the diverse community of LA through various outreach programs ...I came to realize that the lack of communication among blacks, Asians, Latinos, and whites was at the root of the riots.

Susie Woo? goal is teaching at an inner-city high school or community college to open the lines of communication among young people of color so that they can move beyond the surface appearances to find the commonality that lies within.

?n the larger context of the 1992 riots, Susie Woo says, ?his may seem like a minuscule step towards rebuilding our community.

Amen to that. And God bless these children of Sa-ee-gu who haven? forgotten.