Chapter 4 notes of Helen Zia's Asian American Dreams book. One of the designated chapter books for UCI's Asian American Communities course (AsianAm52).
Chapter 4: To Market, To Market, New York Style
● In NY, the Asianam community increased by 132% between the 1980-90s → Korean
American communities began to open “small business led in the African and
Afro-Caribbean neighborhoods.” (85)
● December 12th Movement: goal was to shut down the “Tropic Market and [call] for a
boycott of all Korean-owned stores” (86) → kick out Korean merchants in black
neighborhoods.
● African American social and economic dismemberment + differing cultures and language
barriers + belief that “Koreans did not show the proper respect or cultural sensitivity to
African Americans.” (86) → hostility between Black customers and Korean store owners.
● Robert Carson, leader of Movement, accused Koreans of conspiracy that the US govt
hired them to “take over black communities” by destabilizing their economy. Truth is that
to save themselves, large corporations inflated grocery and other stores’ prices.
● Also, most Korean storekeepers migrated after the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s,
limiting their knowledge of the issue w/ equal rights and economic justice of Africanam.
Africanam believed they “received special govt loans or secret financing from Korean
Unification Church” → “Each group was burdened w/ misinformed stereotypes of the
other; each wanted recognition and respect.” (88)
● Four months after Tropic Market owner vs. black customer incident, Bedford-Stuyvesant
Korean merchants agreed to: “apologize for the Tropic Market incident; ...open account
at a black-owned bank; participate in mutual cultural sensitivity training; donate money to
scholarships/a program to build black entrepreneurship; ...shut down the Tropic Market”
(88) itself. In return, Africanam residents would “acknowledge that Koreans did not
receive finance from the US govt nor the Unification church to fund their businesses.
Important b/c most Korean Americans belonged to mainstream Christian churches, and
worked hard to build up their own stores.
● “Mitsubishi's purchase of a stake in Rockefeller center” (89) caused another wave of
Anti-Japanese feelings in Americans, as seen in New York media around 1989.
● Assault against Asianam two weeks into December 1989 were not considered hate
crimes b/c attackers did not utter racial slurs before the assault happened– yet put them
in hospitals, and killed a few.
● “To Koreans, looking customers directly in the eyes was a rude affront; touching a
stranger’s hand when giving change, an inappropriate intimacy.” (94) Africanam
customers took their mannerisms as if Korean store employees were disgusted by
them-> sign of disrespect and rudeness.
● Other Asianam ethnic groups were ignorant toward Korean store-owners' issues. Or
businesses did not want to associate w/ them for fear of losing black customers as well
as Asianam community activists losing Africanam allies.
● “Asianam has become suspicious characters again- but this time cast as surrogate
whites.” (97) As the Asianam community was finally starting to be represented, boycotts
forced them to wrongfully be seen as racially oppressing villains in American narrative.
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