To avoid falling into America's favorite urban scapegoats when crimes happen, Korean-Americans should need to improve their English language proficiency, a veteran Korean journalist in the U.S. said.
K. W. Lee, an 80-year-old Korean American journalist who became the first Asian immigrant to work for mainstream daily publications in the United States, said in a piece published in a Korean community newspaper that many Korean-Americans are still "without the common English medium of communication in this nation of competing groups and interests," placing them in a disadvantaged position.
In a piece, titled "No English Final: the unlearned lesson of 4.29: an English voice is the key to urban survival," he took the example of the 1992 L.A. riot in which thousands of Koreans fell victims to the racially motivated violence.
In the riot, "Korean-Americans witnessed their American dream go up in smoke overnight," he said.
"Without our own timely proactive English voice, we are shut out of the 24/7 news cycle with devastating consequences, in cases of fast developing urban unrest or anti-Korean rumor- or race-mongering. Even a high school kid learns fast that English is his or her best weapon in classrooms and school yards and dealing with school bullies."
I have to stop and think what's more offensive: that he's suggesting Korean-Americans have been, and will be again, American scapegoats, or that his newspaper article has two colons in the title.
For an article about the need for English proficiency, that's certainly a mess. Nearly as ironic as last week's fail.
3 comments:
he's suggesting Korean-Americans have been, and will be again, American scapegoats,
Not saying I agree or disagree, but when four White police officers are acquitted for the videotaped beating nearly to death of a Black guy and this results in hundreds (?) of Korean businesses attacked and/or destroyed, what do you suppose that is?
One could argue that the American media made a bigger deal out of the attacks on Korean stores and in fact they were no more or less targeted than other stores in the area. The sole Korean who was killed in the L.A. riots was an ethnic fighter who went to the riots to defend his peeps.
But the targeting of Koreans was a major theme of mainstream English media, not something the local kyopo press pulled out of its ass.
Hey Brian,
I've been reading your blog for a little while, and it's been great, but I think you crossed the line with the title and tenor of this piece. It sounds to me as if you're saying Koreans deserved what they got in the LA riots (and you make fun of an 80-year old Korean's English to top it off). Korean Americans regard the LA riots as a tragedy that was brought upon them by a host of factors, including the L.A. mainstream media's treatment of Black-Korean tensions in the period leading up to the riots. Though Koreans weren't by any means free of fault (e.g., the shooting of Latasha Harlins, Koreans business' racism towards Blacks, lack of desire to give back to the Black community, etc.), you cannot say that the L.A. riots, which specifically targeted Korean businesses, were caused solely by Koreans' mistreatment of blacks and didn't have something to do with the beating of Rodney King, another display of WHITE police brutality against a Black man within a centuries-long history of racial oppression. If you don't think the Koreans who were targeted were scapegoats, at least to some degree, then I've got to say that you're misinformed at best.
I really do understand the frustrations at Koreans that you relate to your readers so poignantly; I'm a Korean-American who's lived in Korea and have experienced plenty of the xenophobia, ignorance, patronization, what have you (this despite my ethnic Koreanness), that I imagine you must encounter on a constant basis. I also have a lot of respect for the discretion and tastefulness with which you've handled your more sensitive topics in the past, and have tended to agree with you on most(esp. on Crown J), but I can't say those things for you this time. I've noticed you treading the line of Korean-American stereotypes recently, and, though initially jarring to me, especially coming from you, I didn't find a need to take issue. I think however that with this post you've broached new ground and risk alienating at least this fan's readership. Your blog has been an entertaining and, because I feel so many of the same things that you do, an empowering read for me, which may be why I seem so bothered this time. Please hang in there.
I appreciate the time both of you took in your comments. The main idea of the post was to just draw attention to the "America's favorite urban scapegoats" thing, which seemed over the top in its own right, hence I swung so far the other way. Koreans weren't without fault, you're right, but nor were the blacks who tore up the cities or the white police officers who got away with near-murder. Perhaps I should have just withheld commentary, then, and called attention to the article . . . or maybe should have laid off making fun of an old man's English. Nonetheless I don't think it's fair to label Koreans as America's favorite urban scapegoats.
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