The events behind the meme took place during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which erupted on April 29 after a jury acquitted four LAPD officers in the videotaped beating of Black motorist Rodney King7. Tensions between Korean and Black communities in South Central LA had already been running high for years. In March 1991, Korean American store clerk Soon Ja Du fatally shot 15-year-old Latasha Harlins during a dispute over a bottle of orange juice. Despite being convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Du received only probation and community service, a sentence that outraged the Black community and made Korean-owned businesses a primary target when the riots began1.

When violence spread north into Koreatown, the LAPD pulled back. Police established defensive perimeters around wealthier, predominantly white areas like Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, effectively cutting off Koreatown1. Emergency calls from Korean residents went unanswered2. "The police were not responsive. They were using Koreatown as a bumper," Yongsik Lee, a furniture store owner who grabbed a shotgun and climbed to his roof, told the New York Post3.

Left without protection, Korean business owners organized their own defense. Many had completed South Korea's mandatory military service and knew how to handle firearms10. Local Korean-language station Radio Korea dropped all regular programming during the crisis, broadcasting calls for help from besieged business owners and enabling informal coordination among volunteers across the neighborhood10. Armed defenders showed up with weapons ranging from hunting shotguns to assault rifles.

The most photographed scene played out at the California Market (known as Gaju or Kaju) on 5th Street and Western Avenue, where roughly 20 armed employees and volunteers defended the store, some wearing white headbands9. Photojournalist Hyungwon Kang shot what would become one of the most widely circulated images while reporting on the ground6.

Within the Korean American community, the 1992 events are remembered as Sa-i-gu and treated as a collective turning point. Prof. Chang called the riots an "absolute wake-up call" to Korean Americans about their lack of political power in the city1. The LAPD's Olympic Division, which covers Koreatown, later made an explicit institutional promise that the abandonment would not happen again12.

The meme's adoption by gun rights groups created lasting tension. Korean American voices are split on the question. Kyung Hee Lee, whose tire shop was ransacked in 1992, called the media's framing of Roof Koreans as allies of law enforcement "insulting." "We did what we did because we had no choice," she said. "The police abandoned the Korean community so the protesters would have something to destroy"3.

When Trump Jr. posted his "Make Rooftop Koreans Great Again" meme in June 2025, photographer Hyungwon Kang said Trump Jr. was "using the photo out of context" and consulted a lawyer after receiving no response to takedown requests6. The Korean American Federation of Los Angeles condemned the post, stating that "the past trauma of the Korean people be never, ever exploited for any purpose"3. The Korean American Freedom Federation separately called the meme a display of "poor judgment by mocking the current situation and invoking painful memories"3.

The Korean American community in Los Angeles grew rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s. South Korea at the time was still under military dictatorship and economically struggling, driving mass emigration to the US9. With limited employment options, immigrants pooled resources to purchase small businesses, often in predominantly Black neighborhoods where white owners were selling cheaply8. This arrangement bred friction, though its severity is disputed. "There were no major tensions, with most of it being hyped by the media," Kim Duk, a participant in the rooftop defense, told Eastern Angle. "The real tension was between white and black people. Koreans were punished for white racism and paid a high price"8.

When the riots erupted in late April 1992, the violence killed over 60 people, injured thousands, and caused an estimated $1 billion in property damage1. Korean-owned businesses absorbed roughly 40 percent of the total destruction, with over 2,000 stores looted or burned3. Korean Americans came to call the event "Sa-i-gu," meaning "April 29," the day it all began1.

The rooftop defenders were not eager vigilantes. "All of the Korean people, we were just focused on protecting our property. And we were also trying to protect the pride and spirit of our Korean community," Yongsik Lee recalled. "We didn't want to fight. We wanted peace"3. Lee described going to Home Depot to buy as many fire extinguishers as he could fit in his car before grabbing a hunting shotgun and joining two neighbors on his roof. From there, he could see other shop owners with guns on nearly every building on his block3.

Richard Kim guarded his family's electronics store with a semiautomatic rifle and watched his mother take a gunshot wound while shielding his father. "On the side of the LAPD, it says 'to serve and protect,'" Kim said. "They were neither serving us or protecting us"2. Kim Duk echoed this: "We saw the police didn't care about our community, and was actually more interested in arresting us volunteer defenders rather than looters and rioters"8.

A detail often missed in the meme: Prof. Edward T. Chang of UC Riverside stated that not a single person was shot and killed by the Korean shop owners. They fired warning shots to deter potential looters and arsonists1. Two people did die in the Koreatown fighting. Edward Song Lee, a Korean American, was accidentally shot by fellow defenders near 3rd Street, and Hector Castro, a Latino man, was also fatally shot, though authorities could not determine who fired the bullet6.

The transformation from traumatic history to internet meme began with media retrospectives in 2011, then accelerated through the Ferguson-era Craigslist ad in 2014 and the spread through gun culture subreddits in 20151213. By 2020, the Roof Koreans concept had been fully absorbed into Second Amendment advocacy circles. Prof. Chang warned that the imagery was being used by white supremacist groups "to justify their own position," calling it "a common divide and control strategy perpetuated by white supremacists" that risked "inciting racial division and hatred between Korean Americans and other communities of color"1.

Not all Korean Americans reject the meme. Tony Moon, who was 19 when he joined his father on a rooftop in 1992, has embraced the identity and dubbed himself an "OG Roof Korean" on social media, becoming a right-wing Second Amendment advocate3. After the 2025 LA protests, he re-posted memes showing his face in place of the Bat Signal shining over the city3. But Wonil Kim, who was working construction during the original riots, pushed back: "What's being posted online brings up really painful memories. We are proud of the people who were protecting our community, but those days were really brutal and cruel"3.

Yongsik Lee offered a grounded perspective. He said he actually sympathizes with the anti-ICE protesters and finds common ground between the Koreans of the 1990s and present-day Latino migrants, both of whom he sees as scapegoats for the party in power. "There's a lot of different Koreans," Lee said. "When you're up on the roof, every Korean thinks differently"3.

The Koreatown Storytelling Program has worked to preserve the human stories behind the meme, collecting oral history interviews with original participants and personal essays on intergenerational trauma. One anonymous participant wrote about the mental health stigma in the older Korean American community and the toll the events took on families across generations11.