Los Angeles a Decade After the 1992 Riots

Impact Report

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LOS ANGELES marked the tenth anniversary of the 1992 riots with the release of a public opinion survey on the state of the city. The major findings were discussed as part of a special one-hour live broadcast of KCRW 89.9’s landmark public affairs program, Which Way, LA? from LMU’s Ahmanson Auditorium. Distinguished panelists, including former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, analyzed the poll results alongside program host Warren Olney and fielded questions from LMU students and other audience members.

Research Summary

In the days and months following the violence that erupted when four police officers were acquitted in the videotaped beating of African American motorist Rodney King, Los Angeles and the nation struggled to make sense of what had happened and why. Policy makers, journalists, scholars, and the general public could not even agree on the words to adequately describe the tragic events – riots, uprising, disturbances, or civil unrest.

The consensus that emerged over the subsequent decade blamed three interrelated trends and conditions for creating a tinderbox in which the acquittal of King’s assailants was merely a spark: racial discord heightened by dramatic demographic shifts, poor social capital exacerbated by a yawning divide between those who have and those who have too little, and benign neglect of low-income urban communities by local and national policy makers.

To what extent can the city of angels still be characterized – as it was recently in Reuters – as "a modern hell of racial tension, social neglect, and glaring disparity between rich and poor"? The Center’s telephone poll of 1,600 residents contains several surprising perspectives on this question. The results suggest the city’s social fabric is far stronger than conventional wisdom about the city would predict. Perceptions of ethnic relations have markedly improved. Residents are more upbeat about the direction of the city and even more upbeat about their neighborhoods. There are also refreshing signs of community spiritedness – from the regularity with which neighbors are talking across the back fence to the willingness of many Angelenos to shoulder higher municipal taxes and fees if doing so would prevent cutbacks in public services. Although Angelenos lack great confidence in the city’s formal governmental institutions and local elected officials, they give high marks to other civic leaders and civic institutions. In short, Angelenos are upbeat about many aspects of life in their city. Nevertheless, a dark cloud surrounds this silver lining: Despite these positive indicators, half of those surveyed believe another riot is likely to occur within the next few years.

Upon close inspection, the factors associated with expectations of future riots are also surprising. Specifically, race matters but not in the way many might expect. Attitudes about racial issues and perceptions of black civic leaders have far more influence on expectations of future riots than the respondent’s ethnicity. Optimism and pessimism regarding political and economic trends in Los Angeles are also significant, as is the length of time the respondent has lived in Los Angeles. After describing the sampling and interview procedure employed for the survey, we explore how a city devastated and divided was not beyond hope and healing and why so many residents remain wary of additional riots nevertheless.

Media Coverage

The Center’s poll received widespread media coverage, including stories in the local, national, and international press. The Los Angeles Daily News and La Opinion devoted front-page coverage to the study on the day of the Which Way LA? forum, which was taped and aired in part on Fox News KTTV and covered by the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Marks and Dr. Guerra discussed the study as guests on the one-hour program on FM 89.3 KPCC, Talk of the City with Larry Mantel. The study also received coverage in national newswires, including the Associated Press and Reuters, and it was picked up by several international newswires, including Agence France Press and Japan’s Kyodo Newswire. England’s BBC Weekend News, BBC Scotland, and BBC Online News devoted segments to the study. Among the national media outlets that covered the study were the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and Newsweek.

Use in the Classroom

The poll is part of a larger effort by the Center to promote knowledge and understanding of the conditions that existed at the time of the riots as well as the civic responses to those lethal events. The Center’s Research Collection houses the papers of Rebuild Los Angeles, and shortly before the KCRW broadcast, the Center was awarded a grant from the Haynes Foundation to preserve the original program tapes of Which Way, LA? and to make them available for research by students and by the general public.
Development of the questionnaire for the public opinion survey was informed by a lecture series on human relations in Los Angeles, part of the Center’s Urban Issues Seminar. Guest speakers included Joe Hicks, Connie Rice, Salam Al-Marayati, Bong

Hwan Kim, Angelo Oh, Ali Modarres, Raphael Sonenshein, and others.
Since the release of the poll, students have used the findings as a launching point for their own research on the state of ethnic relations and other conditions affecting Los Angeles, and plans are underway for a student conference that would highlight their research on Los Angeles.

Academic Conferences

Analysis of the poll results has continued, and the newest findings will be reported at the Annual Meetings of the Western Political Science Association and the American Political Science Association.

Scholarship

An article based on the research is being prepared for submission to the top-ranked Urban Affairs Review.