Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity
Individuals vs. Institutions
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture
Summary
Analysis
Smith interviews Reverend Tom Choi, a Chinese American minister at Westwood Presbyterian Church. Choi’s church boasts a wealthy congregation. Choi is tall, thin, and Yale-educated. Choi speaks about going out on Saturday to clean up after the riots. He purposefully decided to wear his clerical collar, which he hasn’t done in years, as it makes him uncomfortable to be called “Father.” But he did it on Saturday because he didn’t want to be mistaken for a Korean shop owner and beaten for it.
Choi wore his clerical collar as symbolic protection against any residual unrest that might be lingering in the aftermath of the riots. His impulse to protect himself also emphasizes the existing tensions between Korean American people and their Black neighbors. These tensions originated when many Korean immigrants took over businesses abandoned by Jewish shopkeepers in the aftermath of the Watts riots.
Themes
Remembering hearing complaints about Korean Americans not supporting Black-owned businesses, Choi intentionally chose to go to a Black-owned business for lunch. He stood up tall and talked to everyone he encountered, asking them “How are you doing?” Everyone answered, “Oh, I’m doing all right,” or something to that effect. Choi was struck by the kindness and warmth of the people TV stations had just made out to be “hostile.” What Choi experienced wasn’t hostility, but a desire to join forces and weather the storm together. He realized then that the protection he needed wasn’t in his clerical collar—it was in “whatever love [he] had in [his] heart to share with people.”
The complaints about Korean American people not supported Black-owned businesses expands on existing tensions that arose from Black people feeling that Korean shopkeepers were unfairly taking control of their neighborhood and depriving them of economic opportunity. Choi’s positive experience patronizing the Black-owned business supports the play’s central thesis that venturing outside of one’s community to transcend racial boundaries and recognize the shared experiences of all people is the first step in alleviating racial tension and creating a more equitable future. He finds that his effort to connect and share “whatever love [he] had in [his] heart” offered exponentially more protection than the empty, symbolic gesture of his clerical collar.
Themes
