This week I wanted to respond to a post by one of my
classmates, Joo, and her trip to Koreatown and how that region of Los Angeles
relates to Durkheim’s views on the division of labor.
Koreatown
is one of my favorite places to visit in all of metropolitan Los Angeles. It is
an area with great food, entertainment, and an interesting history especially
over the last twenty years since the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Whenever I am in
the area with friends, we usually go over to the BCD Tofu House on Wilshire for
some tofu soup. There are a few other places we have gone to in the past, but
BCD is just so good and consistent (and open 24 hours!).
Your post
on the division of labor got me thinking about a few of the experiences that I
have had in the past while visiting Koreatown. I have to admit that reflecting
on most of my trips there, I didn’t see the variety of businesses or
occupations that you described. The main thing on my mind every time I went out
there though was grabbing some awesome Korean food. One experience down there
however stuck out when I was thinking about your blog post and I wanted to
share it with you and everyone else reading here.
If I were
to make a guess when this experience occurred, it was probably back in January
of 2009. My friends and I were on our winter break from college and the nights
were starting to get kind of cold (by southern California standards at least).
One morning after an all-nighter of video games and movies, one of us came up
with the great idea of grabbing some tofu soup for breakfast. We all rode out
to BCD and by the time we got there it was probably around 5:30 AM.
Just across
the street from the BCD on Wilshire is a large Catholic church. I guess I
hadn’t noticed it before, but I thought this was kind of peculiar, as the vast
majority of Koreans that I knew (in the Cerritos area) belonged to Evangelical
and Presbyterian denominations. (The three Koreans that were part of our group
were all Presbyterian for example.) Eventually our food arrived, we ate, and
went on our way but as we were leaving not only I, but my friends as well
noticed that there was a large number of Korean parishioners going into the church
across the street.
A
discussion on the topic or Korean religious life quickly broke out in the car
and we started driving around Koreatown, looking for other churches. We found
several Korean churches all throughout the area representing a number of
different Christian denominations. In addition to these churches, we also drove
past a couple Buddhist temples. This experience showed all of us diversity within
the religious life of the Los Angeles Korean community that we had never noticed
or recognized before.
I think
that sometimes when visiting different ethnic communities, a lot of us who grew
up in southern California and the United States in general tend to look at them
as being culturally homogenous. So often we fail to see the different ways
groups of people within those cultures go about their lives. You are absolutely
correct that Koreatown is full of differentiation and specialization, and it is
not unique in that regard. I have had similar experiences visiting Little India
and Little Saigon as well. These ethnic communities throughout Los Angeles are
full of differentiation and definitely carry the markings of a distinct
division of labor. I appreciate your post exploring these issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment