Swap meets in the U.S. long consisted of U.S.-born vendors who sold mostly secondhand goods in outdoor spaces. In the 1970s, Latino immigrants started selling cultural goods and affordable services at swap meets in Southern California and some swap meets started resembling the
tianguis, open-air markets, of Mexico. At the same time, drive-in movie theaters were becoming less popular, and their owners eagerly rented them out during the day to outdoor swap meets, which proliferated. Then, mostly
Korean immigrants used their connections in the growing import/export trade with Asia to establish their own swap meet stalls and stock them with new, cheap goods from Asia instead of secondhand goods. In the 1980s and 1990s as properties in
South Los Angeles and parts of Central L.A. became abandoned, Korean immigrants bought them and turned them into indoor swap meets. ==Connection with gangsta rap==