During the 1992 LA riots, Korean-Americans instinctively recreated Korea’s historic mountain fortress defense—transforming rooftops into battlegrounds and communities into unified strongholds.👇
1. The 1992 LA Riots and Korean-American Response
1.1. Background of the LA Riots and Targeting of Korean Businesses
The LA riots erupted in 1992 following the Rodney King verdict, igniting racial tensions and massive civil unrest. While the anger was directed at systemic racism and police brutality, the violence disproportionately impacted Korean-owned businesses.
As chaos unfolded, Korean storefronts were left unprotected. Police barricaded white neighborhoods while leaving Koreatown vulnerable, interpreted by many as a tacit allowance for looting. Over a thousand Korean businesses were vandalized, burned, or looted. Some Korean shop owners were beaten or even killed while attempting to defend their livelihoods.
1.2. Emergence of the 'Rooftop Koreans'
Faced with abandonment by authorities and unrelenting violence, Korean-Americans began to organize. They formed self-defense groups, built barricades, and established tactical strongholds on rooftops of multi-story buildings.
Armed with rifles and makeshift communication lines across rooftops, these defenders—later dubbed “Rooftop Koreans”—used high ground to monitor and repel looters. The visual and functional resemblance to traditional Korean mountain fortress (sanseong) defense tactics was uncanny.
2. Why This Strategy Mirrors Mountain Fortress Warfare
2.1. Architectural and Tactical Parallels
Korean fortresses were built into mountainous terrain, using height to gain tactical advantage. In LA, the Korean community instinctively used rooftops as elevated strongholds, creating defensive perimeters like fortress walls. Communications between buildings mimicked the interconnectedness of ancient fortress networks.
Defenders used long-range rifles—modern equivalents to bows and arrows—to repel intruders attempting to breach their territory. Just as mountain fortress defenders poured arrows and boiling oil on invaders, Rooftop Koreans fired warning shots or direct fire at looters below.
2.2. Cultural Reflex, Not Military Planning
What’s striking is how instinctive this was. Without formal coordination or military command, Korean-Americans across LA independently adopted similar defense strategies. It wasn’t just about guns—it was about high-ground defense, strongholds, signaling, and communal commitment to mutual survival.
This instinctive cohesion revealed a deep-seated survival psychology formed over centuries of defending against invasions. It also mirrored the collective Korean response in wartime—fragmented in peace, united in crisis.
3. Combat Culture, Civic Defense, and Identity
3.1. The Role of Military Experience
Many Rooftop Koreans were military-aged men who had served in the South Korean military during the 1970s and 1980s—a time when conscripts trained under extremely harsh conditions. Their ability to coordinate, hold positions, and aim with discipline was no accident—it was muscle memory from past military training.
3.2. Symbol of American Values
Though immigrants, Rooftop Koreans embodied a deeply American value: the right to protect private property. In a country where individual rights are sacred, their actions—though controversial—were seen by many as patriotic self-defense. Some commentators called them the ideal model of American immigrants: responsible, brave, and self-reliant.
3.3. Complex Reactions and Legacy
In African-American communities, Rooftop Koreans became a symbol of bitter memory—beaten not only by the system but also by those perceived as outsiders. Still, some Black activists later acknowledged the Koreans’ right to defend themselves when law enforcement failed.
Today, Rooftop Koreans remain an iconic image in American pop culture—revered by some, misunderstood by others, but undeniably memorable.
4. Rooftop Defense as a Modern Sanseong Revival
4.1. The DNA of a Fortress Nation
Koreans have often been called a “fortress people,” not due to superiority but necessity. Korea’s mountainous geography and centuries of foreign invasions demanded a culture of high-ground defense and communal endurance. The LA riots showed this wasn't just history—it was living instinct.
4.2. Contemporary Parallels
Another modern example is Korea’s deployment of company-level tactical bases in the Vietnam War—closed, high-defensibility strongholds resembling mountain fortresses. Like Rooftop Koreans, those bases reflected a unique Korean approach: fight as a unit, retreat is not an option, survival is collective.
5. Conclusion: Defense as Identity
The story of the Rooftop Koreans is more than an anecdote from a riot. It’s a case study in cultural memory, resilience, and the instinctive activation of a historic defense doctrine in a foreign land. It shows how the fortress mindset—deeply embedded in Korean identity—can reappear wherever survival is at stake.
