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Screw Through Your Chest
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 Mrs. Young-Soon Han, a former liquor store owner, in the woman’s house on Sycamore Street in Los Angeles. Mrs. Young-Soon Han sits before the coffee table in her living room. She states that she no longer sees America as a land of possibility, as she is a “victim.” Mrs. Han explains how America doesn’t let its Korean immigrants participate in society and wonders why this is. Is it because they don’t have political representation, or because they aren’t fluent in English?
Mrs. Young-Soon Han’s testimony offers a more in-depth analysis of the racial tensions that existed between LA’s Korean American and Black populations in the late 20th century. Han takes issue with the media’s lack of sympathy for Korean business owners, many of whom lost their stores to the riots. Despite this, the narrative the pushed by the media focused on the minority of Korean people who had weapons and fought back during the riots, suggesting that the Korean population as a whole had a racist-fueled vendetta against their Black neighbors. In calling herself a “victim,” Mrs. Han suggests that the media has been so focused on construing Korean people as racist instigators that the losses they suffered in the riots and the broader injustices they suffer in daily life are forgotten.
Themes
Mrs. Han begins to punctuate her grievances by banging her hand, forcefully and rhythmically, against the coffee table. She says that Korean people can’t get food stamps. They can’t get welfare. In contrast, African American people who’ve never had a job qualify for these benefits. Why does America punish Korean people? she asks. Is it because they have a car, a house, and pay their taxes?
Mrs. Han’s frustrations are complicated. On the one hand, her grievances about not being afforded the same rights as naturalized citizens are valid. However, she uses derogatory assumptions about LA’s Black community to make her point, insinuating that many Black people are unemployed and reliant on government assistance. Her logic assumes that the benefits one minority group receives come at the direct cost of another.
Themes
Mrs. Han states that Black people might have felt that the trial represented a victory for them. She watched on TV, that Sunday, as Black people all across South-Central celebrated the righting of injustice. “Then where is the victims’ rights?” she demands to know. What will justice do for the Korean shopkeepers whose stores and livelihoods were destroyed in the riots? Mrs. Han states that Dr. Martin King, with his emphasis on nonviolence, “is the only model for Black community.”
Mrs. Han makes further reference to the media’s skewed portrayal of the riots, which she argues placed Black oppression front and center, vilified the minority of Korean shopkeepers who took up arms to defend their businesses, and ignored the many Koreans who were hurt, killed, or robbed during the unrest. Mrs. Han continues to use an us vs. them thought process (Korean people vs. Black people) to argue her point. This keeps her from identifying what’s actually oppressing both the Black and Korean communities in LA: a broken police system, an underfunded city infrastructure, and systemic racism.
Themes
Mrs. Han describes how watching the Black community celebrate was like “swallowing the bitternesseh.” She almost felt happy for them, since at least someone who fought for justice was able to win. She also admits to “hav[ing] a lot of sympathy and understanding for them,” and for other minorities. Still, while she wishes she could live alongside Black people, after the destruction of her store, she feels that the fire that was lit still can “burst out anytime.”
Mrs. Han’s closing remarks show that she does have a nuanced understanding of her and the Black community’s standing as minorities in the U.S. She understands that they are both victims of an oppressive system who have long been denied justice and equal treatment under the law. It’s for this reason that she feels “a lot of sympathy and understanding for them.” Her apprehensions about living alongside Black people seems more an emotional response to the trauma of losing her store than inherent racism. Still, this suggests that it’s easier to blame one's neighbor for one’s hardships than a largely invisible and complicated legal system or government.
Themes
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