Koreatown Daniel
 | |
| Era | The Nineties |
|---|---|
| Age | 40-55 |
| Home | Los Angeles, CA |
| Demographic | Korean-American, small business, immigrant |
| Lean | Lean Republican |
| Race | asian |
| Successor | Little Saigon Tuan |
A Korean immigrant who has owned a liquor shop for two decades in South Los Angeles. His politics were fixed by the Los Angeles riots of April 1992, when he defended his shop from its roof, and neither party has ever tried to claim him.
Who they stand for
Korean-owned shops suffered close to half of the property damage in the Los Angeles riots of April 1992. The police withdrew from South Central during the riots, and Korean merchants defended their own stores. The year before, Soon Ja Du was sentenced to probation for killing the Black teenager Latasha Harlins, which had already set Korean shopkeepers and Black customers against each other. Korean Americans call the riots Sa-i-gu, the founding event of Korean American politics. The city made giving up a liquor licence the price of rebuilding. Many stores never reopened. The merchants who stayed stopped expecting the city to protect them.
Asian Americans were a contested vote in the 1990s. They voted for George H. W. Bush in 1992 and for Gore in 2000. Daniel is a Republican for the reasons of a small proprietor. He wants low taxes, public order, and strong support for the police. Daly City Marilou, who is a union employee, is on the Democratic side. His successors are Little Saigon Tuan in the 2000s, whose defining event is the fall of Saigon, and Edison Chen in the modern era, who has no defining event and votes on his children's university admissions.
Playing to them
He supports policing that reaches his own block, low taxes on a small business, relief from the licensing and insurance rules that fall hardest on a corner shop, and being addressed as an American of forty years' standing rather than as an immigrant. He opposes a police force that is ordered to stand back, a president who excuses looting as protest, and immigration rhetoric loose enough to include legal residents. He has mixed views on immigration and on welfare, so neither issue wins him. Public order and support for small business win him instead.
Winning him on policing also wins Bay Ridge Kevin, Bensonhurst Rosalie and Bayou Earl. It loses Brownsville Deon and Baltimore Kiana, whose brothers are stopped by the same police. Winning him on tax loses voters who want more public spending, including North Philly Arlene. He is one of the easiest personas in the cast to lose without meaning to. One remark about foreigners, or one riot met with indifference, costs his support, and no apology wins it back.
Where they live
The five states where Koreatown Daniel makes up the largest share of the electorate in the nineties:
- Hawaii
- California
- Nevada
- Washington
- New Jersey
Lineage
Koreatown Daniel → Little Saigon Tuan → Edison Chen
Asian small-business owners, for low taxes and against affirmative action in all three decades. For Daniel and Tuan the politics come from one event each: the Los Angeles riots for Daniel, the fall of Saigon for Tuan. For Chen there is no such event, and his politics are about his children's university admissions. He has moved from lean Republican to swing because the Republicans still agree with him on admissions but now talk about immigrants in a way that includes him, and because he supports abortion rights.