How Prepared Are the Small Businesses of Little Bangladesh in Mid-City Los Angeles?

By Rimon Tanvir Hossain-

As the brush fires which started on Tuesday, January 7, rage on with the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, and Hurst Fires accounting for 40,000 acres of Los Angeles County burning from four different vicinities—the Pacific Palisades, Santa Clarita, West Hills and Altadena—, inner-city immigrant communities are bracing themselves for a potential spread to their dense and heavily populated areas. One such community is the Little Bangladesh neighborhood located in the Mid-City, Koreatown area, home to over 15,000 first-generation, working-class Bangladeshi immigrants who have been settling in the neighborhood since the 1990s, earning the Little Bangladesh designation in 2010.

 

The population density of Little Bangladesh as well as the wider Mid-City, Koreatown neighborhood is 42,611 people per square mile, making the community one of the densest neighborhoods in the United States. Six grocery stores, three restaurants and two mosques serve this community and while they receive heavy foot traffic on any given week, their respective management and leadership have noticed a sharp decline in business and visits as a result of the fires. The owner of Sonar Bangla, a corner grocery store next to Masjid Al Falah on 3rd and Serrano, Mohammed Kawser Ali, stated how, “very few people are coming and it hasn’t been the same since the fire.”

 

When questioned about the business the same week, Ali stated, “The business is very slow.” One block down, another grocery store on 3rd and Hobart, Khurshid Alam, the owner of another grocery and restaurant, Amar Bangla, echoed a similar experience. “Compared to before the fire, few customers are coming.” When Alam was questioned whether the city provided any support or notification for support to their business after the fires, he reported, “We are receiving notices on our safety, but not a single word from the city for our small business support.” Alam also added, “We want the fires to slow down because if we have to leave the store, we lose everything and have no support from the city.”

Another long-standing Little Bangladesh storefront, Deshi, owned by Nazmul Chowdhury, argued that their business hasn’t yet been affected by the fires. Chowdhury said, “The fires have only recently started and I can’t say that it has been affecting our business.” When questioned about resources or outreach from the city authorities, he said not yet, but that, “SNAP, EBT and other benefits are in effect until February 8, 2025.” When the conversation came to whether Chowdhury had any plans for evacuation, Chowdhury mentioned that similar to the experience from COVID-19 lockdowns, “we have no plans.” Hare Nath, the owner of Asian Mart, a grocery store on Alexandria Ave and 3rd which he has owned for twenty-five years, explained how, “very few customers are coming because many of my customers are from the affected neighborhoods.” On top of having his business heavily affected the week of the fires, Nath also stated, “We  have received no special notices for our businesses aside from the Amber alerts to our personal phones.”

Kasturi is one of the last Bangladeshi-owned restaurants on 3rd Street, located on the corner of Berendo Street, whose manager Mukul Mridha, expressed how his business has slowed similar to the experience of the majority of Bangladeshi grocery stores and restaurants on 3rd Street. When asked if he had any evacuation plans, Mridha stated, “We have to save our own lives first before the business.” He said, “Typically on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we don’t have space to offer all our customers a seat, but this weekend, we have had hours gone by without a single customer.” Mridha said that this has been the case since Wednesday when news of the fires started spreading.

Members of the Artesia-based non-profit organization started in 1990, South Asian Network, a social services and civic engagement group with a second office in Little Bangladesh opened in 2023, made rounds to every store, restaurant and place of religious worship in the neighborhood to distribute masks, share fliers on fire safety and offer the management a chance to speak about their experience. “After learning firsthand from the South Asian small businesses, we call on the City of Los Angeles to allocate adequate resources for their full recovery from the economic impact of the wildfires,” said Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of South Asian Network. A consensus has been that aside from one exception, there has been a considerable drop in their foot traffic, sales, and visits. Concerning any communication or notice from the city authorities, none has been made and they remain independent on themselves in case of an emergency. Similarly, on the topic of evacuation plans in case the fires were to spread to Little Bangladesh, none of the small businesses or places of worship have an evacuation plan in order.

As of Sunday, January 12, 2025, the nearest fire, the Pacific Palisades Fire which has made it to Beverly Glen, is 13 miles away from the Little Bangladesh neighborhood. Given the population density of Little Bangladesh and its surrounding neighborhoods, evacuation efforts for the residents as well as all the community-owned businesses will have unprecedented impacts on the densely populated area. The experiences from similar neighborhoods like Altadena smell extreme levels of long-lasting consequences to the people of densely populated, working-class immigrant communities.

 

[Rimon Tanvir Hossain works as a community organizer at South Asian Network. South Asian Network is a 35-year-old community organization based in Artesia, CA, and Little Bangladesh, CA. The CCE (Citizenship and Civic Engagement) Unit takes on clients for immigration cases as well as education and outreach on immigration issues, know-your-rights workshops on hate crimes and hate-motivated incidents for the South Asian population throughout Southern California. CCE actively works towards civic engagement opportunities and civil rights efforts to uplift its clients and community. Reach out to SAN at saninfo@southasiannetwork.org and/or at (562-403-0488). Our team is here to listen, provide a safe space, and connect you with any additional resources you may need during this turbulent time.]