0:00

On Inheriting during World War Two,

0:02

Leah Bash as family was among

0:04

nearly one hundred twenty five thousand

0:06

Japanese Americans incarcerated in isolated camps

0:08

or with and kale that they

0:10

ruin my life to listen to

0:12

Inheriting From L A A Studios

0:14

and The and Pure Network. I'm

0:16

Emily Quang, host of the new

0:18

podcast, Inheriting From L A A

0:20

Studios join me for an immersive

0:22

evening about Asian, American and Pacific

0:24

Islander families and their histories. June

0:26

Twenty Seventh at the Crawford in

0:28

Pasadena. Tickets at las.com/ Events. The.

0:31

Year was nineteen ninety and ten year

0:34

old Carol Quang Park was fast asleep.

0:36

When. Her mom's voice woke her up at

0:38

way too early o'clock. Mom.

0:41

Was like. I'm gonna go to.

0:43

Number one to Sakara Ground. When I go to the

0:45

station. Come. With and like.

0:47

Okay, In

0:49

the doorway, she could see her mom

0:51

silhouette, the halo of her nineties from

0:53

the family ran a gas station and

0:56

counting how Fournier Carol spent her sixth

0:58

birthday at the grand opening with hotdogs

1:00

and a mariachi band. And now her

1:02

mom was summoning her at the crack

1:04

of dawn to come when. He

1:07

i get the car with your only

1:09

A because what I remembered at that

1:11

point was a go to the station

1:13

with mom and Dad Now it's just

1:15

mom. I get candy. I get so-cam

1:17

going to blow Exactly Raising a little

1:19

Villagers. So I thought you she

1:22

just had to go do something.

1:30

When. She got to the station.

1:32

Carol could see the twelve gas

1:34

pumps rising in the darkness, casting

1:37

sharp shadows under the fluorescent lights.

1:39

I do him or lot of

1:41

like the smell of gasoline and

1:44

like exhaust and street and will.

1:47

And in the middle was the heart

1:50

of the business. a small concrete building

1:52

with just two windows. The cashier spoof.

1:55

She. Grabbed this plastic creep box

1:57

and she works. It mean she's.

2:01

Your double digits you u ten years old

2:03

you can work now know like what. And

2:06

so I'd get up on the Xbox

2:08

because are still too little to reach

2:11

the buttons of the register and she

2:13

proceeds to teach me how to basically

2:15

sell gas. This is back when we

2:17

didn't have credit card machines so they

2:20

would come up from say hey, five

2:22

dollars on numbers. Size and

2:24

I. Take the money and then I was

2:26

press the pump number five than as pipe and

2:29

five bucks from it was hit enter and that

2:31

would turn on the golf early. On

2:34

still see the button they were different colors, they

2:36

were white, blue, red and from that day forward.

2:39

I just felt like this is my duty.

2:41

I will do what she asks and so

2:43

from then on I was a catcher. Carol.

2:49

Had to work because her father had

2:52

passed away a few months earlier. Her

2:55

mom was still wearing all black in morning.

2:57

Someone. Needed to take his place at the

3:00

station which was the families only source of

3:02

income. So. Curl became the

3:04

designated a kid a cashier and don't

3:06

get me wrong I did complain and

3:09

I did get mad at mom and

3:11

I would be like this is unfair

3:13

it's child labor this is wrong but

3:15

let me go get my backpack all

3:17

be the car and few a few

3:20

minutes. I

3:22

recognize this reflects. Of. Doing

3:24

whatever is asked for your family survival.

3:26

And. Having a ton of questions about it later in

3:28

life. The. Docking the Carol. Making.

3:31

This show. Healthy make

3:33

sense of my own family dynamics.

3:38

My. Grandparents left China because of the nineteen

3:40

Thirty Seven and base and by Japan,

3:42

The war sent most of my family

3:44

on the run, scattering across the world.

3:47

And will my grandparents, matt and

3:49

settled in the United States. They

3:51

were under a lot of pressure

3:53

to assimilate quickly. When my dad

3:55

was five, they stopped speaking Mandarin.

3:57

so my whole life he only

3:59

spoke. English. I

4:01

can hear it in this old home video. I

4:03

think I was five years old. Dad

4:13

still calls me Emmy, by the way,

4:15

which he sometimes shortens to Semi for

4:18

Funny Emily. The Emmy-ness

4:20

of it all. Everything okay, Emmy? Yeah,

4:24

yeah, yeah. Everything's good. Dad

4:26

and I talk, but we never talked about

4:28

his first language. And how, when

4:30

we went over to my grandparents' house, they

4:32

spoke Mandarin, but he didn't. That's just how

4:34

our family was, and I accepted it. I

4:39

have searched through our home videos to

4:41

find moments of my grandparents speaking Mandarin,

4:44

even a little. There isn't

4:46

much. But

4:51

I do hold on to this one

4:53

memory of my grandma Hui. I

4:56

was about five years old, and one day she

4:58

sat me down in the sunroom with a box

5:00

of Crayola markers and a blank sheet of paper.

5:04

And she started to teach me how to draw

5:06

characters. Sun for

5:09

mountain, hides for child,

5:12

hua for fire. She

5:14

pointed out how the character for

5:16

rain, ew, looks just like what

5:19

it is, with the sky arching

5:21

over falling raindrops. Her

5:23

marks were quick and confident. Mine

5:26

were shaky echoes. But

5:28

across the page spread our twin

5:30

characters, her rain and my rain.

5:33

And I could see that my hand moving

5:35

across the paper made her so happy. She

5:41

and Grandpa died a few months

5:43

later, both from cancer. And

5:46

when I miss them, I reach for this moment,

5:49

wondering why in

5:51

her last year on Earth did she want to

5:53

teach me a language she encouraged my father to

5:55

forget? I

5:59

turn this moment to her. in the sunroom over

6:01

and over in my mind, shaping it

6:03

like clay, trying to give it the

6:05

meaning and power it deserves. For

6:08

Grandma, maybe it was just an afternoon

6:10

with her grandkid, but for

6:12

me it's come to represent a kind

6:14

of inheritance. Proof

6:17

that she wanted me to learn this language,

6:19

talk to our family, be in conversation with

6:21

our culture. But

6:23

I can't be sure because she's not here for me

6:25

to ask her. A couple

6:28

years ago when reports of hate crimes against

6:30

Asian-Americans were at an all-time high, I

6:32

don't know why, but this was the memory that

6:35

came roaring back. It made me want

6:37

to sign up for Mandarin language classes to start

6:39

reading up on Asian and Pacific Islander history, things

6:41

I never learned in school. And

6:44

I started interviewing my dad and a bunch

6:46

of his relatives in California, asking them to

6:48

turn over their old memories. Part

6:52

of this is personal. I want

6:54

to know my family better, but

6:56

it's also become political. In

6:59

working on this show, I have

7:01

had to learn, really learn, about

7:03

war, about colonization, about the laws

7:05

and policies and stereotypes acting upon

7:08

my family and other families. So

7:11

on this show we're going to break apart

7:13

the AAPI monolith. Each episode

7:15

is going to focus on one family

7:17

and how a historical moment rippled through

7:20

the generations of that family. This

7:23

show is also going to dive into my family

7:25

story because I'm still trying

7:27

to figure out what links my experience to

7:29

the more than 20 million Asian-American and Pacific

7:31

Islanders in this country. We're

7:34

gonna start with Carol Kwong Park and

7:36

the LA uprising. She lived

7:38

through it, but she didn't fully understand it

7:41

until she went back and posed her questions to

7:43

an important actor in history, her

7:46

mom. From

7:49

LAist Studios and distributed by the NPR

7:52

Network, this is Inheriting. I'm

7:54

Emily Kwong. Support

8:08

for LAist comes from Michelson

8:10

Philanthropies, advancing solutions to challenges

8:12

in California and beyond. Founded

8:15

by Dr. Gary Michelson and

8:17

based in Los Angeles, its

8:19

four private foundations support biomedical

8:21

research, higher education and animal

8:23

welfare. Guided by the mission

8:25

to make life less unfair,

8:27

Michelson Philanthropies helps vulnerable and

8:30

underserved communities through catalytic grant

8:32

making, impact investments, energetic advocacy

8:34

and strategic partnerships. Learn more

8:36

at michaelssonphilanthropies.org. One

8:41

event can change a family for

8:43

generations. I'm Emily Kwong, host of

8:45

a new podcast from LAist Studios

8:47

called Inheriting. It's about Asian American

8:49

and Pacific Islander families and their

8:51

histories. Join me for an immersive

8:54

storytelling event at the Crawford in

8:56

Pasadena. June 27th. Get your tickets

8:58

now at las.com/events. In

9:11

telling her story, Carol says a couple of

9:13

Asian racial slurs that she heard growing up.

9:17

So take care while listening. Carol's

9:19

parents owned five gas stations across LA

9:22

City. But after Carol's dad died, it

9:25

was too much for her mom to handle alone. So she

9:28

kept the one in the city of Compton and sold the

9:30

other four. But here's what the parks

9:32

didn't know about Compton. Way back before World

9:34

War II, Compton was overwhelmingly

9:37

white. And when black families

9:39

started moving from the south into the neighborhood,

9:41

they were met with hostility by white families,

9:43

a lot of whom then left Compton. And

9:46

this was a pattern playing out in a lot of

9:48

American cities in the 1950s and 60s. After a while, middle class

9:53

black and Latino families left too. So

9:56

by the 1980s, working class

9:58

jobs in Compton were scarce. And

10:01

it wasn't just homes that changed hands. It

10:03

was businesses too. Jewish and Japanese

10:05

merchants began to sell their stores at

10:08

prices cheap enough for another group in the middle of

10:10

LA's racial hierarchy to buy. Korean

10:12

families like Carol's who

10:15

didn't know much about the history of Compton, just

10:17

that it was a place they could afford to open up

10:19

a business. The Parks lived

10:21

in the suburbs in a different part of LA County.

10:24

When she wasn't in school, Carol spent every

10:26

waking moment at the station in Compton, which

10:29

is still there, on Rosecrans and Atlantic.

10:33

I wanted to see it, the

10:35

gas stations, this gravity well of

10:37

Carol's childhood. When we get

10:39

there, she quickly waves us over. Her

10:42

voice is faster than I remember and

10:44

she's doing that thing where she laughs

10:46

whenever tough things come up. She points

10:48

to the first thing that sparks memory.

10:51

A giant hole cut in the middle

10:53

of a chain-link fence. And

10:55

I'm wondering, is she just excited to be back here?

10:57

People just hop through that. A hole? Oh, a hole

10:59

in the fence? Yeah. Or

11:02

hypervigilant. Because to

11:04

me, the gas station looks like any

11:06

other on this stretch of road. A little

11:09

rundown. There's a lamppost spent in

11:11

half, but not dangerous. But

11:15

the way Carol is moving reminds me of

11:17

people in military families. She never

11:19

puts her back to the street. So these

11:21

are two pumps per station. So six here

11:23

and six over there. Got

11:25

it. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. We

11:28

turn, go to the cashier space.

11:31

And I realize the windows are

11:33

totally encased in bulletproof glass. Carol

11:36

points to a bullet hole from her cashier

11:38

days, pokes it with her finger. Then

11:40

motions to the trim around the building,

11:42

which is a hip-high rock wall. Let's

11:45

see these rocks. This is meant

11:47

for cars. Like if a car gets out of

11:49

control, this is what it hits. But

11:51

for me, it wasn't about that car, it was about the bullets.

11:55

And I realized this is what Carol would use as a

11:57

shield. ground

12:00

in the booth. Yeah, because I was always

12:02

working there. Carol

12:04

continues her tour in the mechanics bay

12:06

and she keeps expecting to see this

12:08

guy, Eggo. Back when she

12:11

was working at the station, Eggo used to come

12:13

by every morning and post up in a plastic

12:15

chair. And he would sit right here every day

12:17

and just look out for mom

12:19

and just watch everything. In my mind he was

12:22

like blessing our business. And

12:24

when he wasn't there she felt exposed to

12:26

all the violence she was seeing outside the window.

12:33

Illegal guns were flooding into LA in

12:35

the 90s, so gang fights

12:37

got more deadly. The LAPD

12:39

was conducting these mass arrests,

12:42

racially profiling black and Latino citizens.

12:45

And when Carol started working in Compton,

12:47

the city had high rates of homicide

12:49

and gang violence. 91 homicides

12:52

for every 100,000 people. Long-time residents

12:56

like Teresa Wyatt felt the change.

12:59

I would walk outside as a young woman

13:01

and there's a dead body of somebody I

13:03

grew up with in the park. Teresa

13:06

is a minister and counselor who has

13:08

lived in Compton for 55 years. And

13:11

as a kid, living on Alondra

13:13

in Central, watching drive-bys

13:15

and hearing gunshots was common.

13:18

Drugs made the gang violence in Compton worse

13:21

too. I felt like the crack

13:24

and the pills and

13:26

the deeper drugs took over the

13:29

city. A lot of

13:31

the gangbangers were doing drugs,

13:33

so they were fighting on

13:36

a different level because they were high.

13:38

So you know they were unaware of really

13:40

what they were doing because they wasn't in

13:42

the right mind. And the

13:44

city was not investing in the neighborhood.

13:46

All around the Park

13:48

Family Gas Station, Carol

13:50

saw crumbling sidewalks filled with trash fences

13:54

around each home. The

13:56

school nearby had broken windows that never got fixed. She

13:59

began to witness stabs and drive-by shootings,

14:01

and the way I see it, the

14:03

station for her came to have an

14:05

inside world and an outside world.

14:08

The inside world was the cashier's booth. Boring

14:11

but bulletproof. The

14:13

shifts spanned 24 to 72 hours. Carol would sit on

14:17

a blue cushion watching the gold-rimmed clock

14:19

tick. She and her mom would take

14:21

turns sleeping on a cot and eating from their rice cooker.

14:23

On the other hand, the

14:26

outside world was in constant motion. People

14:31

filling up their gas tanks to go to work, buying

14:33

cigarettes, gathering to talk, and it wasn't always safe

14:35

for Carol to leave the booth and go outside.

14:39

One night, when she and her mom were

14:41

at home, a man tried to rob the

14:43

register and stabbed two of the gas station's

14:46

employees. The workers survived, but

14:48

Carol told me that leaving the booth

14:50

became excruciating, like when she had to take

14:52

the meter readings for the pumps. I

14:54

hated doing that because I would

14:56

run out, shine the light, look over my

14:58

shoulder, write the number down on the stupid little pad, and run

15:00

back in. Most of Carol's

15:02

time in the booth was spent serving customers,

15:05

but those interactions were unpredictable. Some people

15:07

were polite, sliding their money through the

15:10

metal tray, but some were not.

15:12

They would slam their money down my... like

15:14

that, and go, Hey,

15:17

give me 10 on 12. I'm like, what's your

15:19

problem, right? God damn it, I'm a kid, right?

15:22

I'm 12, like, please,

15:24

can you stop cussing at me?

15:26

Because I have no control over

15:29

how fast that gas is flowing

15:31

into your car. Customers

15:33

accused her of taking jobs, of ripping

15:35

them off. Some seemed to hate the

15:38

fact that she existed, calling her words

15:40

she'd never heard before. Carol

15:42

was baffled by this. As she

15:44

puts it, what did my Korean face have

15:46

to do with the price of gas and

15:48

cigarettes? courtesy.

16:02

Around this time the Korean presence in

16:05

LA County was growing. By 1990,

16:08

families like the parks ran thousands

16:10

of businesses in majority black

16:13

and Latino neighborhoods. Gas

16:15

stations, liquor stores, beauty supply

16:17

stores. And

16:19

Koreans occupied this middle position

16:21

between the black and white

16:23

communities for reasons that Carol

16:25

didn't understand. She tells

16:27

me that her childhood view was narrow, framed

16:30

by this one bulletproof window

16:32

and flashes of hostility on the

16:34

other side. So she started

16:36

to fight back. The F-bomb became her

16:38

weapon in these heated exchanges with some of

16:40

her customers. I was racist at

16:43

some point because they were calling me these names so

16:45

I'd call it right back. I know

16:47

that was extremely wrong now and in my

16:50

later adult years I understood what was

16:52

happening but I I was angry for

16:54

a long long time. Carol

16:56

says she became a truly angry

16:58

kid set off by the tiniest

17:00

word or gesture. She attended

17:02

a mostly white private Christian school in Norwalk

17:05

and hid from her classmates that she spent

17:07

her entire weekend working at a gas station,

17:10

tried to make school and work separate dimensions.

17:13

But the work was changing her and

17:15

she started getting into fights with other kids.

17:18

Even the principal was like hey

17:21

Mrs. Park you might

17:23

want to have your kids you

17:25

know go to therapy. I wish

17:28

she would have put us in therapy but also

17:30

mom didn't know either what that meant. So

17:33

Carol retreated further inside.

17:36

She told me it wasn't just that

17:38

she was angry or constantly afraid it's

17:40

that she was alone. Fulfilling a

17:43

family duty in a community where she

17:45

wasn't wanted. She turned to

17:47

fiction and would bring library books to

17:49

the station to pass the time. I

17:51

used to read N.F. Queen Gables

17:54

with my favorite most favorite

17:56

series of books when I was a kid. Like

17:58

my god this girl is living a life that I

18:00

wish I could have had. I'm just worried about, oh

18:02

no, should I read this poem? Right? Or should I,

18:05

you know, hit Gilbert Blythe over the head with a

18:07

chalkboard? Those are the problems

18:09

I wish I had instead of the problems I was having,

18:12

which was my dad just died. I gotta work with this

18:14

24-hour shift with my mom. But it's okay if I can

18:16

read this book. When I heard

18:18

Carol say, but it's okay, I

18:20

can read this book. What

18:22

I really heard was, accept the

18:24

status quo and survive. Get

18:27

lost in other worlds without thinking

18:29

too deeply about what may prompt

18:31

and tip. By

18:38

1991, Carol had been on the job for

18:40

a few months and was getting used to it. The shifts,

18:42

the register, but the world outside was

18:45

balancing on a nice edge and it could

18:47

not sustain. And

18:49

then on March 3rd, four

18:51

members of the LAPD beat Rodney

18:53

King. The footage was

18:55

everywhere. It was the first video

18:57

documenting excessive use of force that really

18:59

captured the nation's attention. I saw

19:02

this tape being played on everything

19:04

like channel two, four, five, seven, nine. Then

19:09

less than two weeks later, Latasha Harlins

19:11

was killed. March 16th, 1991.

19:13

Latasha Harlins, a

19:17

black teenager, is shot and killed by

19:19

a Korean store owner, Sun Jadoo. The

19:22

black community was in agony after

19:24

this, another young life taken. The

19:27

Harlins family joined community organizers in the

19:29

streets calling for justice for Latasha.

19:32

National Geographic was covering it, talking

19:34

to organizers. And

19:37

there was a video of

19:40

Sun Jadoo killing Latasha Harlins from the

19:43

store's security camera. Carol

19:56

was horrified by what she saw. word,

20:00

Latasha Harlins, right? This is

20:02

bad. Suddenly, Carol's fights

20:04

with customers became a matter of

20:06

public debate. NBC News

20:08

was just one outlet reporting on

20:10

what the media was calling the

20:12

black-Korean conflict. In this overwhelmingly

20:15

black and Hispanic area, Koreans own

20:17

many of the small businesses. They're

20:19

insular. They employ their own. They keep

20:22

to themselves. Blacks say that's

20:24

the problem. The trial

20:26

verdict for Sunja Do only heightened the anger

20:28

and the grief. She

20:30

was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which

20:33

usually comes with a years-long prison sentence,

20:35

but the judge gave Do a much

20:37

lighter sentence, with no jail time. This

20:39

lady has killed my 15-year-old granddaughter,

20:42

and she got away with five

20:44

years' probation. This is an injustice.

20:48

And that sentiment echoed across L.A.

20:50

County, to Compton, and to

20:52

Carol's cashier window, where the verbal

20:54

abuse from customers got much worse. They

20:57

would come up to the windows and they'd say, you know, fuck

20:59

you. Go back where the fuck you

21:01

came from. Kill Latasha Harlins like that. This

21:04

interaction in her booth was happening

21:06

all over Southern California. I

21:09

just remember going, oh, how is this going

21:11

to affect my mom and

21:14

me? But I was more worried for my mom.

21:16

You sound very protective of her. Yes. Did

21:19

you feel like her parent

21:21

ever? Not her parent,

21:23

but more like her bodyguard? That

21:27

year, 1991, some more

21:29

Korean shop owners robbed or killed. Carol

21:32

was alarmed every time she saw it on the news. And

21:35

across L.A. County, the decades

21:37

of frustration compounded by the tapes all

21:40

seemed to converge on the Rodney King trial.

21:43

Four Los Angeles police officers were charged in

21:45

the beating, and the video was part of the evidence.

21:48

It showed the officers hitting King over 50

21:50

times with a baton. And when

21:52

the verdict was read on April 29th, 1992, Carol watched it live on TV.

22:00

One moment, we'll read the verdicts. They

22:02

put the white paper in the window. We

22:04

the jury, in the above entitled action,

22:07

find the defendant, Lawrence M. Powell, not

22:09

guilty of the crime of the assault.

22:11

Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

22:13

More not guilty verdicts followed quickly

22:15

for all the defendants on charges

22:17

of assault, excessive force by a

22:19

police officer. And I remember

22:21

thinking, not guilty, so that means they're not going

22:24

to jail? Like, I looked at my brother, he's

22:26

like, what? See, be

22:28

him. It was just like a,

22:32

how could they not? How could they not

22:34

be brought to justice? But I knew

22:36

it was bad, and I knew it could have repercussions for us.

22:40

Korean Americans, we call it sa-i-gu,

22:42

which means four to nine, which

22:44

is the date of April 29th.

22:48

Sa-i-gu. Immediately after

22:50

the verdicts were read, people started

22:52

to gather at churches and in

22:55

the streets, in prayer and in

22:57

protest. No justice, no

22:59

peace. We ain't got nothing to say. Never

23:01

have changed, people. There's never been a

23:03

change of faith. I

23:06

feel that there is an undercurrent of racism

23:09

and that the system is right through the core,

23:11

and I couldn't sit in my home and just

23:13

watch it on television. I had to come here

23:15

and let my voice be heard. The

23:17

feeling in the streets was that

23:20

the not guilty verdict, on top

23:22

of the light sentence for Latasha

23:24

Harlan's killing, implicated the entire system,

23:26

the police, the government, and the

23:28

business community. Demonstrations gave way

23:30

to stores being burned down and emptied,

23:32

and a lot of those businesses were

23:34

owned by Koreans. NBC News

23:37

was again in South L.A. talking to

23:39

residents. It's a

23:41

way for people to bend

23:43

their frustration, and then they're

23:45

targeting Korean-owned businesses and white

23:48

businesses. 41 Korean

23:50

businesses in South Central have been torched,

23:52

dozens looted. Why? You

23:54

know? I don't know. Why? Why?

23:56

Why? on

24:00

TV, I don't know what's going to happen. Carolina

24:03

brothers realized that the wave of civil unrest

24:06

was coming for the station, where her mom

24:08

was still working. At some point I'm going,

24:10

you know what, I think it's time for

24:12

mom to come home. And

24:14

my brothers start calling, mom, you got to come home.

24:20

I was just like, I know, I know, we

24:22

need to finish this. And then her telling me,

24:24

yeah, there's people with bats and rocks and things

24:27

under the sign and they're throwing things and they're saying stuff.

24:30

NPR and the news program Inside Edition

24:32

covered the unrest. I

24:34

would knock over a toad that the entrance

24:36

to the parking lot smashed it, then stuck

24:38

it, burned it. I don't know

24:41

what's going on, but I don't think I can come and I've

24:43

already called the police, but they're not answering. 27 and rescue 21 are going with a

24:45

strike. Watch

24:48

a stunned shop owner standing

24:50

by helplessly, visibly shaken and

24:52

unable to protect his clothing

24:54

story. Outside, in

24:56

fact, a man was shot to death in his

24:58

car. Was that related to

25:00

the riot? Yeah, definitely. Because it was

25:02

a Korean man driving down the street.

25:05

And they

25:07

could just pull my mom out of the car. That's the thought that would go

25:10

through my head. We

25:12

only have one parental unit left. Please come

25:14

home. What

25:16

did she say to you on the phone? I'm trying,

25:18

but I can't now. There's too many people here. I

25:20

gotta go. Tung up. Yeah.

25:29

Eventually, her mom did come

25:31

home. So she came home at like after

25:33

730 or something? Yeah, it was in the

25:35

evening. And she was like, well,

25:37

momma, tell me what happened. What's going on? Oh

25:40

my gosh. Like, you know, falling over

25:42

myself. Just, well, how did you get home? She

25:44

just goes to the refrigerator, opens the door and

25:47

gets pancha and dinner. And

25:49

she just calmly eats. That's

25:52

it. Nothing. Go

25:55

do your homework. Don't bother

25:57

me, basically. Like everything's fine.

26:00

Hearing her mom say this calmed Carol down

26:03

a little, but she was mostly confused. On

26:06

TV she could see that LA was

26:08

catching fire, and she had no

26:10

idea how her mom felt about it or

26:12

how her mom even got home that

26:14

day. And in the days to come, the

26:16

world became the Park family's worst

26:19

nightmare as police abandoned whole

26:21

neighborhoods to guard the wealthier parts of North

26:23

and West LA. Carol's mom

26:25

was glued to Radio Korea, which became

26:27

like a call center for Koreans trying to defend

26:29

their businesses. People on the

26:32

radio kept saying, we're calling the police, but

26:34

no one's coming. Carol

26:36

heard the shock and betrayal in

26:38

their voices. NBC News talked to Korean

26:40

business owners who had spent a lifetime building these

26:42

businesses, now burning to the ground. What

26:46

do you say, you hear this sound that's right?

26:49

I mean, can't people realize what you're

26:52

doing is wrong? This is not the

26:54

way to overcome racism. I

26:56

don't have any words to say. Why is

26:58

this going on so properly? I only

27:01

have one shotgun. That's all I have. Her

27:05

mom grew increasingly agitated. Their livelihood, thousands

27:07

of dollars in money, and inventory was

27:09

sitting in a tinderbox. Her mom didn't

27:11

know if any of it was still

27:13

there. The

27:18

LA uprising lasted six days,

27:21

and in that time, 63 people

27:23

died, most of whom were black

27:25

and Latino. In

27:27

the days to come, there was constant talk in

27:29

the media about the black Korean conflict. That's

27:32

because $1 billion in property was

27:34

destroyed, and half of that

27:37

was Korean-owned. At

27:39

the Park family gas station, looters had made off

27:41

with tools and tires from the mechanics bay, then

27:43

to the garage doors. But

27:45

the building was still standing, and the

27:47

money in the safe was untouched. In

27:50

the days to come, some people actually brought

27:52

stuff back. Hey, I think this

27:54

was uh... I think this might have

27:56

been your tire. Hey, is this

27:58

a snap-on tool set? like,

28:01

looks familiar to you, like, you know,

28:03

like, oh, yeah, it does, thank you.

28:06

Carol thinks the business was saved because of

28:08

all the goodwill her mom fostered in the

28:10

community. She

28:12

would give people breaks, like, hey, Mrs. Park,

28:14

you know what, my engine

28:17

needs a new transmission, but I ain't got the money

28:19

for it. Okay, you'll pay me next month. And they

28:21

would pay it. You know, a month later, they'd come

28:23

back, hey, Mrs. Park, here's the $200, right? Thanks so

28:25

much. And

28:28

she tried, so the community knew

28:31

her, that small little area knew

28:33

her. All the regulars called her

28:35

mom, Mrs. Park. Never called her by her

28:37

first name, even the pimps, everyone, Mrs. Park.

28:40

And when Carol got into fights with customers, her mom would

28:42

tell her to stop. She would always tell me, why

28:45

are you so mad? Stop

28:47

being angry. Be grateful

28:50

for what you have. Even

28:52

though they worked side by side, Carol and

28:54

her mom didn't really understand each other. Carol

28:57

had no idea how her mom

28:59

felt about Sa'iku. Her mom just went

29:01

right back to work, seemed so calm

29:04

and unflappable. And Carol

29:06

was just angry. She

29:09

remembers shortly after Sa'iku, sitting

29:11

on that blue cushion in the booth, looking out

29:14

at the sky filled with smoke and ash. Looking

29:17

out the window and just checking my head about,

29:19

like, why? Why would we do this? Seeing

29:22

all this violence without being able to understand it

29:24

or contextualize it, shattered my belief

29:27

in how society operated and shattered

29:29

my belief in how people could

29:32

be. Could they be good? It's the biggest question

29:35

we always have. Why? Why would we do this?

29:37

Why would this happen? Why?

29:40

And I didn't get to answer that question until I was an adult.

29:49

Support for LAist comes from

29:51

Michelson Philanthropies, advancing solutions to

29:53

challenges in California and beyond.

29:55

Founded by Dr. Gary Michelson

29:58

and based in Los Angeles, it's a pleasure

30:00

to be here. private foundations support biomedical welfare.

30:04

Guided by the mission to make philanthropies

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helps vulnerable and underserved communities

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through catalytic grant making, impact

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investments, energetic advocacy and strategic

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partnerships. Learn more at michaelsunphilanthropies.org.

30:21

I'm LA as food editor, Gab Chabran. So

30:23

we are going to do the chicken katsu

30:25

domburi. A taco is not just a taco.

30:27

A pizza is not just a pizza. And

30:29

noodles aren't just noodles. We focus on

30:32

all-natural ingredients. Everything is by hand.

30:34

I explore how food connects us to

30:36

the social fabric of Southern California. Vietnamese

30:39

sandwich shop here on the corner of

30:41

Ford and North Broadway in Chinatown. And

30:43

tells the region's story. LAist.

30:46

Independent journalism. Fact-based journalism. Hey,

30:48

Emily Quang

30:55

here. Thank you for listening to Inheriting.

30:58

Inheriting is entirely donor-funded.

31:00

It only exists because of support from listeners like you.

31:04

So if you found meaning in this story

31:06

and you want to hear more episodes of

31:08

Inheriting, help us make season two

31:10

happen. Donate now at

31:13

laist.com/inheriting to help tell more

31:15

of this story. Okay,

31:17

back to the show. Carol

31:23

would work at the gas station every weekend for the

31:25

next decade. Dutifully, bitterly, living out her pubescent years.

31:32

Stuffing her why. Why did sa'igu happen deep in the

31:34

past? As just another

31:36

chaotic plot twist in the incoherent story

31:38

of her life. And all

31:40

that time at the booth, imagining other lives, she

31:42

was fantasizing about becoming a writer. I could write

31:45

away all the sadness and bullshit,

31:50

right? And I could write fiction and

31:52

I could do all these things. And so my thought was, well,

31:54

if I want to be a writer, I have to

31:56

learn how to write. And she thought journal

32:00

was a good way to try out the whole professional

32:02

writing thing. After graduating college,

32:05

she got a full-time job as a reporter

32:07

at the business press. She

32:09

go to the newsroom on weekdays, kept working at

32:11

the gas station on weekends, and

32:13

in getting to know the other reporters was told to

32:16

stay away from Masiel. Masiel

32:18

La Dron de Guevara, who worked for

32:20

La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper that shared

32:22

the same office. They

32:24

were like, oh, don't talk to Masiel. She's

32:26

a fresa, which means, like, you know, stuck

32:29

up. Masiel was told

32:31

that Carol was mean, but

32:33

one day they found each other in the lunchroom. Then

32:36

we just started talking and we just hit it

32:38

off. It was like, pop! I was

32:41

like, she's not a fresa. And you were like, she's

32:43

not mean. You're not

32:45

a bitch. Masiel

32:48

was from an immigrant family, too, and

32:50

Carol says she seemed to just get it. And

32:53

Carol started opening up, telling her stories from her

32:55

weekends at the gas station. This

32:58

motherf- call me this

33:00

thing and I don't understand why they keep doing that. The way

33:02

she would tell it was funny. And so

33:04

it was actually

33:06

a lot of comic relief in

33:08

a lot of the tragedy that was going on around her.

33:13

Masiel liked her. She started putting out

33:16

friend feelers, asking if Carol wanted to

33:18

hang out outside of work. It

33:20

was always, I can't, I gotta go back to the gas station. And

33:23

so I realized how much that impacted

33:25

her life. But

33:27

at 26, Carol's life

33:30

changed when she showed up

33:32

to her shift and there was someone else

33:34

standing beside her mom in the cashier's booth.

33:36

She's like, this is Badeer. He's gonna

33:38

work. What? You're

33:40

gonna training him. I'm gonna train

33:43

Badeer to work my shift? Uh-huh. Wow.

33:45

Just like that. Just like that. Boom. And then

33:47

what happens? I just remember going,

33:50

now what? Her mom's

33:52

decision to hire someone else to

33:54

work weekends was life-changing. For

33:56

16 years, Carol hadn't known

33:58

Saturdays and Sunday. Sundays without the

34:01

gas station. Hadn't known

34:03

the freedom of unoccupied time, how the

34:06

mind wanders, and how anything

34:08

unresolved has a way of showing up. Her

34:11

whole life started rushing back to her,

34:13

crawling up the walls, keeping her

34:15

awake at night. I'd

34:18

be awake for like twelve hours straight, and

34:20

just like stare at my ceiling and

34:22

think, oh, I have so many

34:24

things to think about but I don't want to think about that. So

34:26

you started having like, was it like thoughts,

34:29

or feelings, or what was happening?

34:32

And it was all the feelings of like just dealing

34:34

with all that stuff that I'd gone through. My dad

34:37

passed away when I was a little kid. I witnessed

34:40

a murder, I see stabbings, I see shootings, like,

34:43

you name it. But I never would think

34:46

about how that made me feel. How

34:48

did I feel about my dad dying? I

34:50

didn't fucking know, right? I never processed it, it was too

34:53

busy going to work. After

34:55

a few weeks, Masiel noticed that Carol

34:57

was barely eating and losing weight really

34:59

fast. Everybody was like, oh, congratulations, what

35:01

are you doing, you're losing weight. And

35:03

it was like such a positive, but

35:06

I remember pulling her aside and asking, are

35:08

you okay? Is everything okay? Carol

35:11

denied anything was wrong. But

35:14

one night, she decided to tell Masiel

35:16

the truth. She was beginning to

35:18

understand that all those years in the booth and

35:20

Sa'igu, have been traumatic. We

35:23

were coming back from getting sweet bread, and we

35:25

were on deadline. I remember I parked

35:28

the car and I thought we

35:30

were going to get off and go in and

35:32

do our stories, and Carol just sat there.

35:35

And she didn't take her seatbelt off, she kind

35:37

of sat there and she just took a deep

35:39

breath inside and I was like, okay,

35:41

what's going on? And

35:43

that's when I think she

35:46

just let everything out. I

35:49

just was like, you know what, I need a

35:51

friend and I need

35:53

to get this out because I've been holding it

35:55

for so long and I trusted her, and I

35:58

thought, this is my best friend, I think I'm going to tell her. This

36:00

is what's going on. That's why I'm losing the weight. This is why this

36:02

is what it is things

36:04

are just not good in many many ways and

36:07

I remember just sitting there listening to her

36:09

and feeling

36:11

like tears in my eyes and

36:14

thinking wow like how incredibly strong

36:16

she is and I

36:18

remember listening to that and being really really

36:21

inspired by you Carol

36:23

stopped downplaying what she'd been through all

36:26

of those years at the gas station

36:28

a therapist later diagnosed her reaction They're

36:30

not eating they're not sleeping as a

36:32

manic episode of depression. She

36:34

needed to heal and That

36:36

meant re-examining her childhood. What was sai-gou?

36:39

Why did it happen? That

36:43

same year Carol got major insight into that

36:45

question while covering a bill moving through Congress

36:48

HR 4437 HR

36:57

4437 proposed a whole series of things

37:00

including making deportations easier and

37:02

criminalizing those helping undocumented immigrants

37:05

The bill sparked one of the biggest immigration protests

37:07

LA had ever seen. It was a

37:10

turning point in Latino politics A

37:12

lot of us they can't ignore us. We

37:14

can't be ignored Carol

37:18

took photos of the protests for La Princea and

37:20

read all the coverage Masiel's articles

37:22

about how the bill would escalate deportations

37:24

and separate immigrant families All

37:27

of it got her thinking about her own immigrant parents.

37:30

That's one really things for me. We're like wait hold

37:32

on like this this

37:34

oppressive very like

37:38

Horrible way of looking at the immigrant

37:40

communities is wrong. Do you

37:42

remember this? Yeah, just really

37:44

seeing how

37:47

how much people struggled as immigrants

37:50

to Build a

37:52

life here and to build a business and all

37:54

of that I think that really resonated with you

37:56

because of your mom and how

37:58

she struggled And this empathetic

38:00

like connection began and I was like, damn,

38:04

we each have a story, whether we're

38:06

immigrants, whether we're naturalized, whether we're undocumented,

38:09

whether we are just birthright

38:11

citizenship. And Carol

38:14

realized that feeling sorry for herself

38:16

was a distraction from understanding

38:18

that it wasn't just about her. It

38:21

wasn't just about Koreans. It could be about

38:23

a whole system of immigration that had

38:25

been transforming LA County over and over again.

38:28

And she was seeing it with her own eyes

38:30

now as protesters filled the streets. I

38:32

mean, I speak Spanish, but I'm not that good at it. And

38:35

I'm this outsider, this other person

38:38

of color. This is what changed me

38:40

when I started to see all this stuff. I

38:42

was like the empathy that I lacked because I

38:44

was so angry. I never understood. Fuck.

38:47

It's not just me. It's us. I wasn't

38:49

the only kid standing in a cashier's booth. So what

38:52

was I complaining about? And I think that's what began

38:54

my journey. Carol was thunderstruck,

38:56

her mind exploding now with questions

38:59

about Sa'i Gu and what I

39:01

would call the wraparound history, the

39:03

demographics, the economics, all the social

39:06

forces that led up to that

39:08

moment, everything outside of the booth.

39:11

She needed to go back to school. And

39:14

in 2009, set out on a

39:16

course to eventually earn a double master's

39:18

degree in Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing

39:20

at UC Riverside. She started

39:22

learning about the history of communities across

39:24

LA, including the black and

39:26

Latino communities in Compton for customers.

39:30

Like what was police brutality, like

39:33

the whole Rodney King beating, right?

39:36

When I was 12, I didn't know that

39:38

that was an ongoing issue for the black

39:40

American community. But as I grew up

39:42

and I went to school and I became educated and

39:45

I was like, oh my gosh, and these stories were

39:47

finally being told to me at the college level. That's

39:50

what helped me to see those things a little bit differently. She

39:54

read Anna Deavere Smith, Toni Morrison,

39:56

Rudolfo Anaya, and with each book,

40:00

She started to see her

40:02

own place in America's racial hierarchy,

40:05

and that one week in April in a

40:07

completely different way. I began

40:09

to understand anti-Blackness exists,

40:12

anti-Asian hate exists,

40:15

and these two things butt

40:17

heads all the time. These

40:20

ideas were never academic for her,

40:22

even when she was in grad school,

40:24

to make sense of how she once

40:26

participated in something so ugly, fighting

40:29

with customers and cussing right back. And

40:31

because of that budding, because of this

40:33

inter-ethnic conflict or these racial hierarchies

40:36

that we are placed in, what

40:38

happens? We forget

40:40

the larger picture. Who

40:44

is oppressing us? How are we

40:46

being oppressed? What are

40:48

those socioeconomic, political issues

40:51

or things that are causing us

40:53

to have these conflicts? What is

40:55

the larger narrative? Meaning

40:58

that the so-called Black-Korean conflict never

41:00

fully captured the truth about Sa-I-Goo.

41:06

Carol started writing about the gas station, working

41:08

on her memoir. She wanted to get

41:10

the story right this time, to tell it with

41:12

all the context she was missing as a kid. Now

41:16

I understand racism, racial conflict, racialization, all

41:18

these different terms we throw around when

41:20

you boil it down to the day-to-day,

41:23

hand-shaking, here's your five dollars

41:25

gas, right? Pump number

41:27

five. Not inter-ethnic conflict.

41:31

That changed for me. Carol

41:36

starts to circle her finger in the

41:38

air as she says this. That

41:40

this period of her life was like an

41:43

outward spiraling. Her consciousness

41:45

ballooning in ever-widening circles,

41:47

she could finally place the family

41:50

gas station in the bigger systems

41:52

of economics, policing, race and class

41:54

in Los Angeles. This

41:57

is the kind of work you'll hear families doing throughout this

41:59

series. season of inheriting, exploring

42:01

how the past is personal and the

42:04

personal historical. I'll be helping them,

42:06

puzzling through my own family story too. We'll

42:09

meet families from across the AAPI

42:11

diaspora, from Cambodia, the Philippines, Pakistan,

42:14

Guam, and more places, and

42:17

listen to conversations between parents and children,

42:20

friends and spouses, siblings and grandparents,

42:23

that shift their understanding of the past and

42:25

their relationships to each other. So

42:28

in our next episode, Carol will do just

42:30

that, learn about Saigoo from the

42:33

person at the center of it all, Mrs.

42:35

Park. And

42:37

I go, well, station, man, that was a lot.

42:42

She goes, I know. And

42:45

I just kind of went silent. And she

42:47

goes, 너 일을 많이 했어. You

42:51

worked a lot. Thank you for your hard work.

42:57

If you want to learn more about any

42:59

of the historical moments we talk about on

43:01

our show, visit our website, laist.com. We

43:05

have put together a variety of resources for you, as

43:07

well as lesson plans from the Asian American Education Project.

43:15

Inheriting is hosted, reported, and co-created by

43:17

me, Emily Kwong. The

43:20

show is a production of LAist Studios and

43:22

distributed by the NPR Network. Anjali

43:26

Sastry-Kurbachev is the senior producer and

43:28

co-creator of the show. This episode was produced

43:30

and sound designed by Minju Park. James Chow is also

43:33

a producer on the show. Sarah

43:36

Saracen is our senior editor. Katherine

43:39

Mailhouse is our executive producer and director of content

43:41

development at LAist Studios. Shannon

43:44

Naomi Krokmal is our vice president of podcasts.

43:47

Original theme music composition by E. Scott

43:49

Kelly. Additional engineering by

43:51

Donald Paus. Fact-checking by

43:53

Caitlin Antonios. Our intern is Tony

43:55

Morales. Our tile art is by

43:57

Christina Chung. Visuals by Samantha.

44:00

Hello Hernandez. Social media

44:02

and video by Christine Malixi and Josh

44:04

Latona. Jenz Campbell is our production

44:06

coordinator. Thanks to Karen

44:09

Grigsby Bates for editorial guidance

44:11

and to our binge listeners

44:13

for further editorial support. They

44:16

were Antonia Serahido, Natalie Chudnovsky,

44:18

Emma Alabaster, Erica Washington, Aisha

44:21

Motiwala, George Kiriyama, Marlee

44:23

Foyer-Worker Otto, Stephanie Ritoper,

44:25

Kaylin Hernandez, Bonnie Ho,

44:27

Jenz Campbell, Emily Garan,

44:30

and Kristin Muller. Archive clips

44:32

of the Los Angeles uprising from

44:34

the Associated Freece, KABCLA, and NPR's

44:37

Old Things Considered and Morning Edition

44:39

programs. Big shout out to NPR's

44:41

Greta Pittenger for helping us sift through

44:43

NPR's archives. Legal

44:45

review and guidance on this episode from Carleen Goller.

44:48

This podcast is powered by listeners

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like you. Donate now at las.com/join.

44:54

Major support for inheriting is provided

44:56

by Jehi and Peter Hough and

44:58

Cathay Bank, as well

45:00

as many more who gave specifically to inheriting

45:03

without whom this show would not exist. Thank

45:06

you so much. This

45:08

podcast is also supported by Gordon and

45:10

Donna Crawford, who believe quality journalism

45:12

makes Los Angeles a better place to live.

45:41

On inheriting, Leah Bash's dad was a

45:43

baby when his family was forced from

45:46

their home to Manzanar, an incarceration camp

45:48

for Japanese Americans. He

45:50

was just born into this shell

45:53

of life versus what

45:55

you should be having around you as a baby. A generation

45:58

later, her dad's collides

46:00

with Leah's own mental health. Listen

46:03

to Inheriting from LA Studios and the

46:05

NPR Network wherever you get your

46:07

podcasts.