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To Drive
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity
Individuals vs. Institutions
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture
Summary
Analysis
Smith interviews June Park, Walter Park’s husband. June cries as she talks about Walter, who came to the U.S. 28 years ago and operated a business in Compton for 20 years. He was nice to everyone, knew the people who lived and worked nearby, and donated to the community. She asks, why was he shot? June admits that she has a lot of anger and cries a lot these days. She spends all her time at the hospital. People aren’t allowed to stay in the ICU. But the hospital staff know her, she brings them doughnuts, and they can see how much she loves her husband. She “spend[s] all [her] time / and in [her] heart for him.”
June’s desperate plea to rationalize her husband’s shooting further points to the relativity of justice. It’s impossible to explain why Walter had to be shot. June’s remark about Walter’s kindness and engagement with his community also complicates Katie Miller’s earlier remark about Korean shops only being targeted due to their owners’ failures to respect or get to know their communities. In reality, justice and injustice are not as straightforward or well-defined as June or Katie Miller want to think.
Themes
