(NYTIMES) - In the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a dedicated group of community organisers, activists and academics banded together to address what the press had called the "black-Korean conflict". Their work, which included a march through Koreatown demanding peace and the publication of several studies, aimed to tell a story of mutual misunderstanding and media distortion.

In Blue Dreams - the first in-depth post-1992 study of the black-Korean conflict - sociologist John Lie and anthropologist Nancy Abelmann wrote that while the fissures between the two communities had a long history, "the situation is not simple; the responses are not singular".