The voice in this section belongs to Mrs. Young-Soon Han, a former liquor store owner. Young-Soon Han was one of the many Korean-American storeowners who was targeted and put out of business during the riots. It has devastated her former sense that “America is the best” and led to the realization “that Korean immigrants were left out from this society and we were nothing,” deprived even of the basic entitlements that the poorest African-Americans could rely upon (“[a]nd we are high taxpayers”) (245, 246). Young-Soon is left asking the same question that so many blacks had throughout the crisis (and this play): “Where do I finda [sic] justice?” Is there justice for the other victims of the riots? To destroy “innocent people,” “innocent Korean merchants,” is it “really justice to get their rights in this way”? (246-47).

For all that, Young-Soon wants “to be part of their [enjoyment],” of their exaltation. At some level she “understand[s]” and sympathizes: “They have fought for their rights over two centuries and I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for them” (248). She even wishes she “could live together with […] Blacks, but after the riots there were too much differences” (249). It is just possible that “Because of their effort and sacrificing, other minorities, like Hispanic or Asians, maybe we have to suffer more by [the] mainstream” (248).

Young-Soon raises the daunting question of whether minorities, within the U.S. system, are forever condemned to get their sense of “justice” only on the backs of other minorities and other marginalized groups. Or whether, instead, something productive can be made of a mutual understanding of struggle, adversity, and common goals. She struggles to adopt the attitude of Reginald Denny, a view of forgiveness, racial harmony, and collective struggle, and the reality of frayed relations and injustice is ultimately too bitter to swallow, much less digest.

The title of this section refers to the “bitterness” Young-Soon must swallow in seeing blacks at last “get their rights” and their “justice” only by “destroying innocent Korean merchants,” thus trading one minority’s pain for another’s (247).

The voice of this section is Gladis Sibrian, Director, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, USA. Sibrian reflects on the feeling of personal helplessness that things can be changed in modern LA—a feeling, surprisingly, worse than that felt by those in El Salvador fighting against a sixty-year military dictatorship. They, at least, were “idealistic,” “romantic,” hopeful, and, above all, organized(250-51).

Sibrian greets with sadness the fact that the LA riots were a mere “social explosion,” something purely “anarchical,” versus “an uprising,” which is “organized, planned,” with a long-term vision, such as the revolution she has actively participated in with regard to El Salvador (251): “Every day in this Los Angeles so many people die and they didn’t even know why they die. There is no sense of future, sense of hope that things can be changed” (252). It is not only a matter of deep structural problems, but, more dauntingly, the disbelief in the efficacy of individuals to effect change.

The title of this section refers to Sibrian’s “nom de guerre” during the fight against long-standing military dictatorship in her native El Salvador (251).

The voice in this section is Twilight Bey, Organizer of gang truce. Bey gives the title to the entire piece.As his name indicates, he is a man of the “twilight,” and, like Bhabha’s twilight, it is a hopeful vision, one of “twice” “light”: “I have twice the knowledge of those my age, twice the understanding […]” (254). Twilight can see a little ahead of his time (the gang truce in 1988, which became reality in 1992). He can also see the need for a common humanity: “in order for me to be a […] true human being, I can’t forever dwell in darkness, I can’t forever dwell in the idea, of just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine” (255). So, Twilight steps out of the shadow—of his race and his nighttime hours, his safe “limbo” state—and “I’m up twenty-four hours, it feels like,” not wanting to miss a moment (255). 

The title of this section refers both to the narrator himself, Twilight Bey, and to the state not only between day and night but between allegiance to one’s race and allegiance to the human race itself (254-55).