a whole community heavily affected by the event (Milanes, 20). "Hispanics accounted for half of the 8700 people arrested city-wide during and after the riots; in fact, the L.A.P.D. arrested more Hispanics (4307) than blacks (3083)" (Milanes, 1998, 20). The mobs ravaged as many Hispanic businesses as those in Koreatown, but this was ignored in the media, resulting in a disproportionate amount of restoration aid for African Americans and Koreans, and virtually ignoring the needs of the Hispanics for help to rebuild lives and businesses after the devastation of the riots..
In 1999 when the editors of the New York magazine planned an issue on Latinos, they could not find an issue featuring the Hispanic population on the cover of the magazine since 1972 under the headline, "The Big Mango: Latin Impact on New York Style" (Navarro, 1999, 17). The editor, John Homans, was embarrassed that it had been 20 years since the Hispanics had been featured. Time and Newsweek also featured Latinos that summer. The editors agreed that the Hispanic population deserves coverage, with 31 million Hispanic people in the U.S., representing a strong cultural and economic force (Navarro, 1999, 18). A possible reason for the previous lack of coverage was the perception that the Latino market did not represent a fertile focus for advertising. This, however, is changing as the Latino community is coming into its own economically (Navarro, 1999, 18).
Adam Moss, editor of The New York Times Magazine, said that the burst of coverage was more about the burst of crossover market in entertainment than about Latinos. Mainstream America has started to buy Latin music. Moss said that changing demographics were not behind the shift, but rather the mainstreaming of Latin music (Navarro, 1999, 18). Representative Nydia M. Velazquez, a New York Democrat of Puerto Rican heritage, said that most of the new coverage focuses on sexy subjects and pop culture, a situati...