20 years later, children of the L.A. Riots remember the chaos

By JORGE RIVAS

Throughout the past month I’ve seen hundreds of news stories on the L.A. Riots and almost every single one of them was published by someone who experienced the events of 1992 as an adult. But we haven’t heard anything from the perspective of children who lived through the civil unrest and remember the chaos.

I was 9 years old and living just a mile away from the intersection of Normadie and Florence where Reginald Denny was pulled out of a trailer and brutally beaten. I was only a child, but to this day have vivid memories of the events that took place and know that there were thousands like me who had stories to share.

Throughout the past month I’ve been meeting with men and women my age — the children that experienced the L.A. Riots — and recording their stories. Above is one video that is part of the series I made for Colorlines.com.  Edson was ten in 1992. He remembers his cousins and siblings clinging on to the men in the family as they left to protect their store from looting.

Visit Colorlines.com/1992 to see full series “Two Decades Later, Children of the L.A. Riots Share Memories.”

This article is cross-posted from Colorlines.com, where Jorge Rivas is Multimedia Editor / Pop Culture Blogger .