For two decades, Hae Sup Um has worked at his Los Angeles liquor store for 15 hours a day, 365 days a year. In her new documentary, Liquor Store Dreams, his daughter So Yun Um uses her family business as a jumping-off point to examine the history and community impact of L.A.’s Korean-owned liquor and grocery stores.
It’s a deeply personal film that conveys the importance of solidarity between oppressed groups, community, and cross-generational understanding. The documentary deals with the racial tension between L.A.’s Black and Korean communities, which still lingers following the 1992 L.A. riots. A direct response to the acquittal of the LAPD officers who had beaten Rodney King, a Black motorist, the riots were also a response to anti-Black violence more generally. The same month as King was beaten, a Korean American shopkeeper, Soon Ja Du, fatally shot Latasha Harlins, a Black teen who she had accused of stealing. Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but did not serve time. About half of the property damaged in the uprising was Korean American-owned, and Liquor Store Dreams incorporates news footage of armed business owners guarding their properties.
Um’s father’s memories of seeing some of his family’s stores burned down in the ’92 riots informed his views of the Black Lives Matter protests, which followed the murder of George Floyd. One of the most challenging scenes in Liquor Store Dreams shows an argument between Um and her father as they’re watching the 2020 protests on TV. The filmmaker’s father argues that Floyd’s murder should be settled through the courts while Um tries to explain the failure of the criminal justice system. This moment documents the divide between older generations, who still have faith in America’s institutions, and younger generations who are more jaded.
While Um and her father continue to misunderstand each other and hold their different perspectives and beliefs, in one of the most touching scenes in the film, Um tells his daughter, “Thank you for trying to understand me.” (During a post-screening Q&A at the Austin Asian American Film Festival, Um said that “the camera was our mediator. I could not have these conversations without the camera.”)
The film also focuses on another “liquor store baby,” the filmmaker’s friend Danny Park, who stepped in to help his mother run their family business, Skid Row Peoples’ Market, following the death of his father. The documentary follows Park as he grapples with his family history and his own mental health struggles, all while transforming the market into a space dedicated to providing affordable, healthy food and creating community. Skid Row Peoples’ Market used the midautumn harvest festival celebration of Chuseok as an opportunity to honor the community’s ancestors, including Black Americans killed by police violence. Danny’s efforts to build solidarity between the Korean and Black communities following the murder of George Floyd are inspiring. “There is no individual healing,” he says. “Change is all relational.”
Liquor Store Dreams played as part of the 2022 Austin Asian American Film Festival, June 23-26.
This article appears in June 24 • 2022.