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In the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest, liquor stores, mostly owned by Korean immigrants, have emerged as the dominant symbol of social ills in South Central Los Angeles. This article investigates the anti-liquor store campaign, mostly led by African American and Latino Americans, and in so doing, attempts to challenge the pre-conceived ideas about inner city areas and the people who live in them. It shows that inner city careers in Los Angles are not as deeply segregated and polarized as has been conventionally portrayed. It also contradicts the popular stereotype of inner city minorities as being so mired in poverty and substance abuse that they are apathetic about their surroundings by showing how and why the coalition was able to mobilize and successfully achieve many of their goals. In addition, it refines the typical monolithic picture of any particular immigrant community, in this case, Korean American comimunity. In short, this paper demonstrates how a coalition of immigrants and minorities were able to mobilize and challenge a powerful liquor industry and were successfully able to get it to change the way in which it operated in and impacted their communities.
The literature on the study of immigrants in the United States has traditionally tended to focus largely on "the manner of incorporation of immigrant groups in America" (Feagin 1978:47), in other words, the ways in which immigrants have located themselves within the social, economic, political and educational institutions of the society. However, the preoccupation with the process of immigrant incorporation has led to a neglect of the ways in which immigrants have shaped or transformed American institutions. The more recent transnational perspective, with its focus on migrant linkages to the home communities has also overlooked the ways in which immigrant groups develop linkages and act to define and protect their interests in their new communities (Chavez 1994: 54-55). This paper examines how a coalition of immigrants and minorities were able to mobilize and confront a powerful and well connected liquor industry and were successfully able to get it to change the way in which it operated in and impacted their communities.
After the acquittal of four L.A.P.D. police officers in the beating case of Rodney King in April 1992, Los Angeles...