nging about what is in some ways a more equal country, it also increased the chances for racial conflict and cultural miscommunication. This is probably especially likely to be the case when racial and cultural boundaries overlap each other, as in the example of African-Americans and Korean-Americans. When these two groups of Americans come together one finds an intricate nest of ideas about race and ethnicity, including Western ideas about how "Orientals" are and how they should behave. Such racial stereotypes necessarily produce tensions in that they prevent people from seeing past preconceived views to the individuals beyond them. But in the case of these two ethnic groups, the very different cultures involves exacerbate the problems caused by racial stereotyping and a racist society because real cultural barriers (including but not limited to language) prevent even those people who want to get beyond stereotype from doing so.
Perhaps the most dramatic recent example of tensions between these two groups occurred in 1992 during the violence that followed the first Rodney King trial, when white police officers were acquitted by an all-white jury of charges arising from their having beaten this black suspect.
But there were tensions between the two groups long before the riots, rooted in large measure in cultural differences and miscues. These are evident in the typical exchange between a Korean-born shopkeeper and an African-American customer. The customer, when he or she enters, is expecting eye contact and some sort of pleasantry in greeting. When a Korean-American shopkeeper, both reluctant to develop friendship with a stranger and trying to be respectful of someone who may n
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