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My Former Home Community of Koreatown
By Raymond Ramirez
When one mentions Koreatown, many stereotypes
come to mind. Many have said
that the area is “ghetto.” Others
have noted that the school system in the area is poor.
Regardless of the different opinions people may have about
Koreatown, one notion seems to be constant; i.e., the area has
a lot of undesirable things about it.
The area, however, holds a very significant place in my personal
history because Koreatown was my first
home here in
America. Hence, I feel like I am blessed with an opportunity
to work in the area that I once called home. The community tour thus strengthened the positive
and vibrant perceptions that I already had about Koreatown;
I was introduced to various resources there that I never knew existed. Also, I feel that an education that promotes
empowerment fits into the community tour because it can be used as
the starting point for letting people know
about the resources available to them in the neighborhood, as well
as making sure that people have a sense of ownership to the area.
The community tour strengthened the positive
light with which I see the Koreatown neighborhood. Much
of this positivity stems from the fact
that I was once a resident of the area and still have a lot of friends
in the area (although I permanently live in San
Francisco now); when I think of L.A.,
I think of the Koreatown area). Actually, when we drove to the area I was somewhat
surprised by the fact that Koreatown was
in the area that it was. This
was so because when I had lived there (a few blocks away from the
corner of Beverly and
Vermont) for two years
in the early nineties after my family and I had immigrated to this
country, nobody had ever called it “Koreatown.” While I noticed a lot of Korean-owned businesses,
the primary residents of the area were Latino-Americans. Thus,
the community tour was a very beneficial one for me because it not
only introduced me to many new resources in the community, but it
also made me see certain institutions in a different light.
For instance, I never noticed the Korean church, Oriental
Mission Church, that we stopped to visit.
In fact, I had eaten numerous times at the Kentucky Fried
Chicken beside it! But I
had never thought of the church and its role as a haven in the lives
of Korean Americans. Likewise, as we were driving around the area,
the tour leaders pointed out many business institutions (such as
grocery stores) have come to be important to many Korean Americans. One of them, which is
on Western Boulevard,
is one that I have shopped in before.
However, I only saw it as a grocery store. I never thought that it was an important institution—much
less a landmark to be pointed out on a tour—for the Korean community
because it helps to preserve their culture. In these respects, although the political tour
of Koreatown at times made me feel like
a stranger in my own neighborhood, I felt that I was able to look
beneath the surface in understanding the important resources and
institutions in the area.
In terms of the
role of education within the community, I feel that it is essential
in both building an awareness of the resources available to people
in Koreatown, as well as giving people
a sense of ownership in the area. For instance, it is highly likely that there
are many residents of the area (such as myself back then) who are
unaware of the significance of different businesses, churches, and
political organizations in Koreatown.
Education that promotes awareness of one’s community is one
way of remedying this because such a form of learning would likely
involve political tours such as ours, as well as plenty of grassroots
community involvement. It is through learning such as these—wherein
one takes initiative and gets involved—that one can avoid being
the depository of regurgitated information Paolo Freire
speaks of.
Additionally, education can be used as a tool
in forging in individuals a sense of ownership for the community
that they live in. Arguably, the Los Angeles riots can be seen
as the result of the lack of solidarity among residents in Koreatown. For instance, it would be reasonable to think
that if people felt a sense of ownership to the neighborhood, they
would have thought twice about looting and burning the businesses
in the area. Education can help in this because classrooms
are the one area where various ethnicities—many of whom are likely
unaware of each other’s customs and cultures—meet, mingle, and learn. In classrooms that foster community empowerment
and awareness, people can learn about each other and about the significance
of many institutions and businesses in their neighborhood. Hopefully through this process, a feeling of
ownership and solidarity will form within the different ethnicities,
and people will cease to destroy their neighborhoods.
Indeed, many stereotypes come to mind when one
thinks of Koreatown. However,
many of these stereotypes can be broken with education. In my case, a political tour of Koreatown not only taught me about the importance of certain
neighborhood institutions, but it also forced me to see the area
as a politically, economically, and spiritually vibrant community.
It also
reinforced the notion that education is a vehicle that can be used
not only to foster awareness among neighborhood residents, but to
promote a cross-ethnic sense of ownership to the area as well.
The work we are about to do in the community is an important
step in realizing this ideal.
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