Remember 4.29.92 // A High School Creative Writing Lesson Plan

By Elizabeth Jorgensen, a teacher at Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, WI

The year 1992, for the high school students in my Creative Writing classes, was a lifetime ago. The year 1992 was before YouTube, Spotify and Twitch. Before free long-distance calls and Uber Eats. Before attending school on Zoom. But even though the year 1992 was well before their lifetime, the uprising of violence—in Ferguson and Minneapolis; in the trial of Derek Chauvin; in Asian hate crimes—remains.

The 2020-2021 school year presented a storm of rising tension, a dual pandemic for my students: both of racism and COVID-19. Throughout the year, my students outpoured emotion. They told me they’re sick of isolation; they’re tired of division and corruption; they’re fed up with police brutality. Now, they said, is the time to make the world different. To make a change. To bring hope and unity. To come together.

In my five sections of Creative Writing, students explored nature’s wonders, their own experiences and dreams; they wrote both about the serious—and not so serious—concerns of humankind. Students studied and wrote diverse poetry forms: Japan’s haiku, Korea’s sijo, America’s skinny poetry. For 18 weeks, my students composed fiction and nonfiction, essays and letters; vignettes and stories. They played with language and tried literary techniques. As the end of the pandemic school year loomed, I looked for something to galvanize my students, something to challenge them to use their voices as change agents. That’s when, scrolling Facebook, I saw a post: REMEMBERING 4.29.1992—a writing contest sponsored by the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles. The contest focused on mitigating tensions between different ethnic groups.

I came back to school with a challenge. I asked my students, “What can you create, using the events of April 29, 1992, that delivers a message of hope and harmony?”

Only some of my students had heard of the L.A. Riots. One or two students in each period said they knew of Rodney King, so I shared an article, which stated,

The 1992 Los Angeles riots and civil unrest were traumatic and transformative for many Korean Americans. The unrest started after the acquittal of four white police officers for the beating of Rodney King, a Black man, during a traffic stop. In South Central and Koreatown, a week of looting and rioting resulted in the destruction of over 2,000 Korean-owned businesses, damages over $1 billion, and the death of 63 people. Forty percent of businesses affected by rioting and looting were Korean-owned shops. Shop owners were angry at the police who left their businesses unprotected. Moreover, mainstream media focused heavily on the tension between Black and Korean Americans rather than the riot’s original cause—police brutality.

We discussed, in a whole class setting, the causes of the riots. Students analyzed institutions, policies, and structures that may have kept problems in place; they also explored the broader social and political reasons that may have contributed to the riots. Students drew parallels between the images of the 1992 riots and the real-time videos of the 2020-2021 protests.

During our next class, students watched Sa I Gu, a documentary, shot 90 days after the L.A. riots. During our next class, students read and discussed a poem: “4/30/92 for rodney king” by Lucille Clifton and watched a YouTube clip of Ishle Park (Poet Laureate of Queens) reading her poem, “Sa I Gu.”

The Verdict Is In (edited by Kathi Georges) and Geography of Rage: Remembering the Los Angeles Riot of 1992 (edited by Jervey Tervalon, Cristian A. Sierra) features firsthand accounts in essays, narratives, and poems. I selected pieces to share with my students. Students echoed the poets they read and said that, even in times of desperation, we have each other. That we are not alone in wanting to create a better world. Students commented on how they wanted to accurately portray a feeling of terror and horror, but also of solidarity; how they wanted to use their art as a positive agent of change.

I asked my students to consider how and why world events spur creatives into projects. My students shared how exploring art increased their own understanding and empathy for the events that occurred on 4.29.1992. One student wrote this to me:

I’ve thought about a lot of different ways I could attempt to write on this topic, and I’m unsatisfied with almost all of them. I lack qualifications, experience, or knowledge. This horrifying event was clearly the culmination of decades of racism, xenophobia, and oppression in our country. I meet none of the criteria required in order to speak over those who have experienced these things. I was given a suggestion by one of my peers to write from the perspective of a white person looking at the riots happening. This would allow me to take a type of third-person perspective, looking on the events from an outsider’s viewpoint. However, this feels disrespectful, in the same way that writing about 9/11 as a bystander would be inappropriate. Regardless of race, this was clearly a traumatic event for everyone involved, albeit in different ways.

Another student said this:

In this poem I was going to try and tell a story,/ except that story isn’t mine and it would be impossible to tell/…This isn’t my story,/ but I hope for the future that there isn’t one like this.

I appreciated each student’s honest and difficult contemplation. I was impressed by their care and thought. My students didn’t want to take on stories that were not their own; they didn’t want to add to the damage of oppression and hatred.

Each of my students mulled and contemplated the call to write about 4.29.1992 in a hopeful and optimistic way; they knew their words could make a difference—and they wanted to craft pieces that would make positive ones.

Students shared (in pairs and then with the entire class) the stories they wanted to tell in about 4.29.1992; and also, the responsibility they carry in processing events they didn’t witness firsthand. Then, they wrote.

To end our unit, I offered a viewing of the YouTube clip, Harmony in Los Angeles 4.29 폭동 기념 한흑 커뮤니티 특별 공연 (a Special Online Performance in remembrance of 1992 Los Angeles Riots). Each student shared his or her piece with the class. We cheered and celebrated each other’s accomplishments. The glimmers of peace emerging. The harmony reclaiming our world view. We had, together, learned about 4.29.1992 and successfully crafted pieces of art that intended to mitigate tensions and strive for an optimistic, 2021 worldview. And, two of my students were selected as winners in the KCCLA competition. Here are their winning poems:

Korean Hibiscus by Annabelle Weiss

In the midst of chaos,
a flower pot lays sprawled across the concrete.
Rich and newly-poured soil is scattered on the ground,
mixing with ashes falling from the sky like black snowflakes.

As if the plant understands,
water flows from the soil and across the dirty concrete,
coloring the concrete a dark gray
with its tears.

Roots are still loosely attached to the spilled soil,
connected to a young and fragile stem.
Laying on its side is a pale pink,
Korean hibiscus.

Its soft petals are scratched,
and brown lines travel along curled-up edges,
as if shielding itself
from the hatred that pollutes the world.

Its habitat is destroyed, it struggles to survive,
gasping for air that’s not polluted by smoke,
and desperate for water
within a burning city.

Rewind:
The Korean hibiscus
sits high on the balcony’s ledge,
naive to the falling distance below.

Proudly,
the flower’s head
tilts toward sunbeams,
absorbing the nutrients.

Perfect weather spoiling all living in Los Angeles,
riots still yet to begin.
An unaffected flower grows untouched,
its fragile home balancing on a metal balcony.

But without cracks and scars,
how do we learn how to glue the pieces together again?
Without hardship, how do we learn to recover?
Without history, how do we improve the future?

Fast Forward:
With time and recovery,
the green skin of the Korean hibiscus grows tough,
stronger than before.

With careful reconstruction, the brown flower pot sits proudly once again.
Unique scars show despite the glue,
but still supports the plant,
and tells its past story like a tiled mosaic.

The flower’s pink face points toward the sky,
more grateful than ever
for memories of smoke-infused clouds to dissipate
and new hope to rise.

***

The Ballad of Smiles by Michael Zordani

I am a windowpane,
suspended in the walls of a corner store in Koreatown.
Every day I see my shop owner,
she opens up the store bright and early with a huge grin on her face.
She plagues the community with a bright soul and a touching personality.
It’s like a sickness,
everyone seems to contract this false virus of kindness.
These vials of happiness escaped from the lab,
and oozed their way into the safe haven,
distributed by one person.
They call her Smiles.
Little kids run to her store all hours of the day,
all white rows of teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
Their eyes sparkle with delight when they get to see the owner.
They love her with all their heart,
she is their Korean mother.
She tries to hold the thin rope, slowly ripping apart, and slipping away,
from her thin and cracking hands.
This rope is the racial divide.
Sometimes my glass fogs up from the breath of those little kids,
for they are far too excited and unable to control their breathing.
This was the only store on the street that had this harmony.

April 29, 1992.
It was dark,
then the silence broke.
Flames erupted from the store across the street.
The flames danced in the night sky,
the black smoke tickled my glass,
making it hard for me to see.
The gunshots, so loud and synchronized, it sounded like fireworks.
BOOM! BAM! POP! POP! POP!
It went on the whole night.
People ran into stores,
collected loot like they owned the place.
Women cried out,
men stood on the roofs,
with heavy artillery.
They defended their businesses for it seems the people entrusted to do so took a blind eye and resented their duty and obligation to protect the world, not just from crime,
but also from hate.
All this happened, but at what cost?
Everything that they worked so hard for is now lost.
The looters run past,
hands heavy and eyes wide,
the white of their eyes made visible by the star-crossed moonlight.
I can still make out a couple of voices calling out from the crowd.
“NO! Don’t loot this store! This is Smiles’ store!”
They kept moving,
the store untouched.
Left alone like some kind of cherished toy kids held onto long into adulthood.
Where was Smiles?
She was nowhere to be found, at least,
not anywhere near her store that was visible from the windowpane.
She was smart.
The looters could climb in and find a way in,
but this store,

this store was a community and culture of its own.
It was the source of their youth.
The place where one could go and feel safe.
The day after,
I heard Smiles thanking those boys for saving her store.
They did not have to,
but they chose to keep their peace with someone that was spreading it.
Maybe, one day in this world,
everyone will find peace and make the world more connected and unified.
Everyone must do their part and find the good inside of themselves.

***

Student responses to the unit

“I only knew that a man named Rodney King was beaten and that riots occurred; I didn’t know anything about the impact of the events on Korean Americans. I learned more about the racial tensions and the amount of pain that came from those days and nights. I think I really got a better picture of what really happened through this unit. I think it’s important to learn about events like these so that history doesn’t repeat itself and we can grow and change from our ancestors’ ways. Also, seeing multiple different perspectives shows us how the media can bias us and feed us only part of the story.”
“I think it’s great that we were exposed to important events and feelings that people who are different from us have in order for us to broaden our views.”
“Before the unit I did not know anything about 4.29.92. From the readings I learned why the riots happened, what happened to the community, and people’s feelings through different perspectives and points of view. I think it was important to learn about 4.29.92 to gain an understanding of conflicts between two groups and how the media portrays those conflicts. I also think it was good to learn about the history and understand this conflict did not occur randomly; it happened mostly because of issues and injustices still in the US.”
“Before this unit I knew absolutely nothing. I didn’t even know the riots happened and I may have heard the name Rodney King before but never connected it with these events. I learned that the riots didn’t just destroy public property but private family owned businesses owned by Korean immigrants. I think it is important to learn about the events so that it doesn’t happen again and we can learn from our mistakes.”
“I am taking away that being hopeful is very important and a part of a successful future. I will carry along with me that actions of the past can be used to improve the future. I want to remember the stories behind 4.29.92 and how the communities were affected.”
“I think it’s incredible the amount of art that can come from pain. It reminds me of Palestinian woman who plant flowers in grenade casings. I will remember the sense of unity I found when writing my poem. I feel like I uncovered some of my own feelings during this unit, too.”

Elizabeth Jorgensen is a writer and teacher. She hopes her most recent book, Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete, inspires young people to follow their dreams. Learn more on her website: lizjorgensen.weebly.com