After watching the Clash of Colors documentary, I felt a surge of emotions. The documentary was on the LA Riots, or 4.29, and its effect on the Korean community that most of the public does not know about. The Koreans came to America to follow the “American Dream” and settled there for economic stability and social inclusion. But, they were faced with racial and ethnic tension, leaving them in shock.

The LA Riots were a big shock to the Koreans; they were wrongly victimized. After the incident with King and the death of Latasha Harlins, many of the Blacks were acting up and were angry. They began to destroy many stores that belonged to the Koreans in Korea town. The Koreans faced a lot of emotional, psychological, and economic despair. After hearing about this, I felt anger, sadness, and pain. As a Korean American, I realized that there was injustice in the American government and police force. Media played a big part of the LA Riots, it led many of the Blacks to misunderstand many of the videos that leaked out that made it seem like people were hating on them. This led them to act up and begin to destroy many buildings.

I believe that the LA Riots could have been prevented. It could have been stopped from being a serious event. If the media never released false videos and released full videos of the events that led to the LA Riots, the Blacks would not have misunderstood. Because of these videos, the Blacks began to destroy many towns out of pure hate. They did not want to be looked down upon and treated as inferior. The Koreans were the main target and they tried to protect their buildings. They pleaded for help to the police, but were in the end, arrested for trying to protect their own buildings. The police force and the American government could have done something to stop the media from spreading false rumors and help the Black and Korean community so the LA Riots would not grow.

Currently, there are many events similar to what caused the LA Riots happening right now. The Black and Asian community are still getting discriminated. We need to begin to understand each other and help other communities facing the same problem. We need to find peace between our communities to solve the hate issues and stop discriminating each other because that won’t solve anything. I hope many Koreans would get to know about what happened to Koreans and forever remember the day of 4.29.


<Ashley Park Fairfax High School 11th Grade>