Roof Koreans
KSP Intern Evan Kim explored one of the most enduring—and controversial—images of Korean Americans during the 1992 civil unrest. Video of “Roof Koreans” or “Rooftop Koreans” were broadcast on live television as business owners and community members protecting their property and livelihoods in the absence of police protection during several days of looting and arson in late April and early May of 1992. Over the next three decades, that iconic image of armed Korean Americans became synonymous with the Los Angeles Civil Unrest—regarded by some as patriotic and others as glorifying violence, and everything in between. Most recently, “Roof Korean” morphed into an Internet meme and has been adopted by Second Amendment rights activists.
Evan explores this evolution and interviewed an “O.G. Rooftop Korean” who shared his story and personal intentions in an in-depth oral history interview. A different KSP participant (who wishes to remain anonymous) wrote a personal essay on intergenerational trauma and the stigma of mental health issues in the older AAPI community, as he grappled with the recent death of a family member who participated in the armed defense of Koreatown in 1992.
Anonymous “Roof Korean” Interview
“Nobody was saying ‘If you're Korean, you must come here and defend your heritage.’ It wasn't that. It was just more like, ‘Hey, we are under attack or threat. We need defense.’ I wouldn’t call it an armed resistance. I would just call it a defense.”
“삼촌”
This personal essay explores how families—intergenerationally—have been affected by the 1992 Civil Unrest.
“It’s much better, it might seem, to move on, to let time take its toll, to let things smooth over, to one day forget it all and go back to normal, back to how things were. But isn’t it this same impulse that led to what had happened in the first place?”
It’s a meme? How the iconic “Roof Koreans”morphed.
Evan Kim
Evan Kim has been a Koreatown Storytelling Program Intern and Workshop Leader since 2021. He was also a Middle School Program volunteer in KYCC Youth Services. Evan graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems, an interdisciplinary major that integrates computer science, math, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to study the human-computer relationship. Recently, Evan has worked as an EMT at a private ambulance company in Los Angeles and is taking pre-med classes, with the hopes of eventually becoming a doctor. Evan’s hobbies include reading books and playing the cello and piano. He was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley.