Why a Oaxacan Restaurant in a Korean community makes perfect sense
A landmark is an object or structure that serves as a point of orientation, often having historical or aesthetic interest, and evoking ideas about the places where they are located. Los Angeles—and Southern California more generally—is a land of landmarks. Those with which we may be most familiar—the Hollywood sign, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Santa Monica Pier—evoke glamour, dreams, and sun. Such ideas and their association with particular landmarks played a powerful role in spurring settlement, promoting economic growth, and shaping a civic identity. When people see and interact with these landmarks, they also get to feel like they are touching up against the extraordinary and magical.
When landmarks become popular attractions, they seem to belong to everyone, but they also tell the stories and convey the aspirations of particular interests. While it may not be obvious or plain to the casual observer, they are borne out of power—who holds it; who seeks it; who claims the authority to define the meaning of a place.
The landscape of notable landmarks in Los Angeles goes well beyond the most recognizable and commonly cited points named above. Los Angeles is, after all, a city of tremendous diversity and a complex history. It is a city where people have seized power, vied for it, and sought to shape it. And if we dig into the history of Koreatown, a wealth of otherwise unappreciated landmarks emerge, revealing even more complex and fascinating histories.
In May 1975 Hi Duk Lee opened his restaurant/night club Young Bin Kwan, or VIP Palace 3014 W. Olympic Boulevard. Lee had a vision of making the establishment a go-to place for Korean immigrants and visitors to Los Angeles and to make it a beacon for the burgeoning Koreatown that was emerging around his other business, Olympic Market. Though he would later wonder if it had been a wasteful and foolish endeavor, Lee spent enormous resources, labor, and time to import the blue tiles from South Korea that would be part of the building’s signature roof exterior. He was hoping to add some Korean-ness to the visual landscape and to bring some high-end fare to further boost Koreatown in its nascent days. To help attract American customers—and, thus, make Koreatown a draw for both Koreans and non-Koreans—he hired a white American manager named Nick Medvid who helped turn VIP Palace into a popular event space, hosting everyone from the Korean Secretary of State to Republicans working on U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection.
tells the story of an American ethnic community often equated with socioeconomic achievement and assimilation, but whose experiences as racial minorities and immigrant outsiders illuminate key economic and cultural developments in the United States since 1965
Koreatown has both changed and remained the same. Since its rebuilding following the 1992 uprising, its center has moved north and west from Olympic and Normandie to Wilshire and Western, where the “big Korean money” has gone. New developments are bigger and glitzier, and young professionals and middle-class people—often non-Koreans—have been moving in, making the area even more economically polarized than before. Those who remember wistfully recollect the grittier, scrappier days of Koreatown in the 1970s. As it had been back then, Koreatown remains multiracial and multiethnic. New immigrants from different nations continue to arrive, from East, South, and Southeast Asia, Central America, Mexico, and South America. In 2005, about half of Koreatown’s residents were from Latin American countries, about twenty percent were Korean, 25 percent were white, and 5 percent Black. Over seventy percent were "recent" immigrants who spoke a language other than English at home. A Little Bangladeshi has recently emerged within Koreatown’s borders. An especially vivid and powerful example of Koreatown’s evolution that has occurred against a backdrop that has always been multiethnic and multiracial is what happened with VIP Palace in 1994. That year, Hi Duk Lee sold the establishment, long a mainstay of Koreatown and the Korean American presence on Los Angeles to Oaxacan businessman Fernando Lopez. Over the 1990s, Oaxacans, an indigenous group from Mexico, had been expanding their residential and commercial presence in Koreatown around the location of VIP Palace. Lopez converted the Korean restaurant into La Guelaguetza, which serves Oaxacan food. Though the building has been painted, the Korean architectural details, including the roof tiles, that were so important to Hi Duk Lee remain, as a reminder of the Koreatown that once was despite the area’s changing composition and character.
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