Nina Revoyd’s novel, Southland, tells the story of love, race, and murder against the backdrop of Los Angeles. The story is based on a character, Jackie Ishida, a Japanese-American immigrant, among other characters, was seeking the answer of her grandfather’s death. During her long Journey, she met many people who contributed to finding her grandfather’s death. However, she realized her grandfather’s death is more complicated than she thought, one incidence follows chain of incidences. The author uses main character Jackie Ishida who is in the process of exploring history that has put on her responsibilities to engage the wider world. In the endeavor, she is to find out the social decay that collapses her naïve view of
…show more content…
This can be seen when Jackie Ishida and James Lanier to find out Curtis Martindale, a worker at Frank’s store, who was found death in Frank’s store. The discovery of Curtis underscores the theme of injustice in Los Angeles during that time. This can be seen from police brutality which was almost a norm that even the police themselves not frown upon. For instance, Nick Lawson, a white police officer in the novel, who had a reputation of criminalizing individuals based on color. This hatred and discrimination are particularly towards American-Americans. He even uses physical force against blacks, “when he hit Curtis this time, the blow was much harder […]” (Revoyr 200), which illustrates Los Angeles was not a place as many people could imagine today. It recognizes the racial tension and intolerance during the post-world war two. The race based discrimination symbolizes the racist attitude that defines the social order and climate of Los Angeles during that time. In another scene, Lawson says “I don’t see why you boys have to act like this. Burning things. Stealing things. You think it’s going to make people like you better?” (Revoyr 306). This indicates the indifferent attitude that some white officers had against blacks in Los Angeles. In fact, the statement embodies racial profiling that blacks have had endure from larger American society. In white police mind, a black man or woman was by default a potential criminal and “deserved” the indifferent attitude from law enforcement officers. A white officer could assault or even kill a black person and no one would care to investigate reasons for such brutality; furthermore, another instances that Victor Conway, an African-American, experience defines the horrific racial discriminations. Victor undergoes his wife is raped and beaten half to death. In which insistence, Victor is misjudged when a white woman make advances on him
This can be seen when Jackie Ishida and James Lanier to find out Curtis Martindale, a worker at Frank’s store, who was found death in Frank’s store. The discovery of Curtis underscores the theme of injustice in Los Angeles during that time. This can be seen from police brutality which was almost a norm that even the police themselves not frown upon. For instance, Nick Lawson, a white police officer in the novel, who had a reputation of criminalizing individuals based on color. This hatred and discrimination are particularly towards American-Americans. He even uses physical force against blacks, “when he hit Curtis this time, the blow was much harder […]” (Revoyr 200), which illustrates Los Angeles was not a place as many people could imagine today. It recognizes the racial tension and intolerance during the post-world war two. The race based discrimination symbolizes the racist attitude that defines the social order and climate of Los Angeles during that time. In another scene, Lawson says “I don’t see why you boys have to act like this. Burning things. Stealing things. You think it’s going to make people like you better?” (Revoyr 306). This indicates the indifferent attitude that some white officers had against blacks in Los Angeles. In fact, the statement embodies racial profiling that blacks have had endure from larger American society. In white police mind, a black man or woman was by default a potential criminal and “deserved” the indifferent attitude from law enforcement officers. A white officer could assault or even kill a black person and no one would care to investigate reasons for such brutality; furthermore, another instances that Victor Conway, an African-American, experience defines the horrific racial discriminations. Victor undergoes his wife is raped and beaten half to death. In which insistence, Victor is misjudged when a white woman make advances on him