Asians Say Too Little Is Being Done to Ease Tensions in Alhambra : Schools’ Handling of Race Strife Criticized

The Asian community is questioning the effectiveness of school officials in promoting racial understanding and defusing campus tensions in the aftermath of a fight between Asian and Latino students at Alhambra High School that left a Chinese student gravely injured.

While careful to mix criticism of Alhambra District school officials with praise, Chinese-language newspapers and Asian community leaders say area schools have fallen short in their efforts to identify potential trouble spots and prevent outbreaks of violence between Asian newcomers on one side and Anglo and Latino students on the other.

Instead of taking preventive measures, they say, school officials often are caught in the position of reacting to violence both on and off campus and the inevitable tensions generated by these incidents.

While acknowledging problems between student racial groups, officials at Alhambra, Mark Keppel and San Gabriel high schools say the tension and occasional violence are inevitable given the profound demographic and cultural changes that the western San Gabriel Valley has undergone in recent years. School officials said they have taken several steps to eliminate the tension and to promote cultural awareness by using counselors and a buddy system in which Asian newcomers are matched with students who have been in this country longer.

Robert Kwan, president of the Chinese Parent-Teachers Assn. of Southern California, characterized attempts by schools officials to deal with the tensions accompanying the Asian influx as “sincere but inadequate.”

Kwan said Alhambra’s three high schools only this year hired Chinese-speaking coordinators to facilitate relations between Asian newcomers and school personnel. Kwan said the hiring of one Asian home-school coordinator at each of the three schools came several years after students from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia began enrolling in significant numbers in the Alhambra school district.

“The schools are trying the best they can, but it’s not enough,” Kwan said. “This problem requires an effort involving the entire community.”

Kwan and other representatives of the Chinese PTA met last week with Alhambra Associate Supt. Heber J. Meeks and expressed concern over the Oct. 25 stabbing of the Chinese student and several other incidents of violence between Asian and Latino students at Alhambra and Mark Keppel high schools. The student, who suffered a critical stomach wound, was reported in improved condition.

Kwan proposed that the school district sponsor a community forum later this month at which school officials, parents, parent-teacher groups and elected officials would discuss racial tensions at the three high schools and suggest ways to bring about greater understanding between student groups.

Meeks said in an interview that he told the group he would pass on the proposal to Supt. of Schools Bruce H. Peppin, who would take it to the board of education.

“The community needs to have a complete understanding of what the schools are currently doing to alleviate the tension,” Meeks said. “Following that, I think we need to consider what the community sees as possible solutions to the problem. That’s why I think a public forum would be a good thing.”

At the same time, the Monterey Park and Alhambra police departments are considering a series of “cultural awareness” programs and sessions for the high schools. Monterey Park Police Chief Jon Elder said it was premature to discuss any details and that the programs would have to be approved by boards of education in both cities.

“We’re trying to come up with some cross-cultural stuff, some sensitivity training that bridges the gaps,” Elder said. “This could include placing 100 sophomores in a class and putting them through some mutual trust training or maybe the use of music as a common denominator.”

Since the 1980-81 school year, the Asian student population has grown from 36% to 47% at Alhambra High School, from 30% to more than 53% at Mark Keppel High School and from 15% to 27% at San Gabriel High School, according to the superintendent’s office.

In addition, school officials say, the Asian influx has brought overcrowding to area campuses. Alhambra High school, which has grown from 3,000 in 1978 to 3,500 students today, now holds math classes in a Presbyterian church a block from the school.

‘A Minority Today’

“What we’ve seen is a Hispanic and Anglo majority a few years ago become a minority today,” Alhambra Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy. “The recent stabbing at Alhambra and prior school violence are directly related to a cultural problem outside the authority of school officials or law enforcement.

“There has been a backlash to rapid increases in the Asian population and that backlash is typified by dinner table conversation by adults concerning Asians,” he said.

“Students are vocalizing the sentiments of their parents that ‘Asians are too pushy. Asians are buying up all the property. Asians can’t drive,’ ” Molloy said. “What we’re seeing now is that Asians are becoming a little less patient with the public ridicule. They see it as a lack of understanding of their plight in a foreign land.”

Police and school officials point out that while adults can avoid each other by retreating into their own insular ethnic communities, newly arrived 15 and 16-year-olds from Pacific Asian countries must confront Anglo and Latino students daily. Many of these Anglo and Latino students were born in the San Gabriel Valley and have attended local schools together since they were children.

“Students are a reflection of the total community in one spot,” said Frank R. Cano, principal at Alhambra High School since 1976. “They bring to the school all that is positive and all that is negative in our community.”

Latinos Seem Bitter

Alhambra High’s Latino students in particular seem bitter about the continuing influx of Asians. In off-campus interviews, one Latino student after another expressed anger over the arrival of the newcomers.

Joseph Kuresa, a junior who wore large, ominous-looking pronged rings on eight of his fingers and boasted about a recent altercation, said his family was being kicked out of their apartment by an Asian landlord.

“He’s giving us this bull that we have to be out by the end of the school year so that his people from China can move in,” Kuresa said. “When I found out, I wanted to beat him up.”

“There are too many of them,” Peter Nevarez, a student, interjected. “They think they’re more upper class than we are.”

Tanya Colantonio, a junior, said the community was changing “too much, too fast.”

“If you drive down Main Street and Valley Boulevard, you can’t read anything. It’s all in Chinese,” she said. “They even changed the theater. Now they show Chinese movies with English subtitles. Who wants to watch that? I thought this was America.”

Diversity Welcomed

But other Latino students said they welcomed the cultural diversity. “The Asian culture has a lot of discipline. Their main thing is to help each other,” said Bryan Lara, a senior. “Many Hispanics look at the Asians buying all the nice houses and all the nice cars and they are envious.”

Several Asian students interviewed downplayed the tensions and said they were too busy with their studies to pay attention to problems between groups of students.

School officials and police detectives who have questioned the 11 students involved in the Oct. 25 fight at the Alhambra Public Library said the incident did not appear to be racially inspired. But they acknowledged that it was difficult to distinguish between “typical high school fights” and the more troubling violence growing out of inveterate racial tensions.

“We believe it was a street issue more than a racial one,” Molloy said. “But we also know that a fight like this can cause racial tensions simply due to the racial makeup of the kids involved.”

Cano agreed. “The stabbing involved two distinct racial groups. When that happens, it leads to racial tensions. Things have quieted down in the last few days. We’re OK until the next incident. . . . Hopefully, that won’t happen.”

According to police, the fight between five Latino and six Asian students grew out of a confrontation last school year between two students, one Latino and one Chinese.

Ill Feelings Continued

The ill feelings continued this school year when the two students, both juniors, got into a pushing match Oct. 23 at school. Two days later, the two students had another confrontation which ended in a promise to meet after school at the public library, which is adjacent to the campus.

“The Hispanic was joined by a brother and three other friends, all Alhambra students, and the Asian was joined by five male Asian friends,” Molloy said. “A gang fight erupted. It ended when a Hispanic kid got a Buck knife from a backpack and stabbed an Asian student. Then everyone ran and left the kid lying there.”

The wounded student, whose name was withheld because he is a juvenile, was stabbed once in the abdomen and the blade cut an artery and damaged his liver. He underwent surgery and initially was listed in critical condition. Molloy said the injured student, whose condition has since improved, was not the same student involved in the original altercation two days earlier.

The stabbing was the second serious outbreak of violence at Alhambra High School in less than a year. Last March, a fight broke out on campus between Vietnamese students and a group of Latino and Anglo student-athletes. A Latino youth suffered a puncture wound from a knife and several of the Vietnamese students--some of them members of a Vietnamese street gang--were injured. Police later arrested four Vietnamese students for carrying weapons.

School officials and police said none of the youth involved in last year’s fight were involved in the Oct. 23 incident.

Concerned About Relations

Asian community leaders and Chinese-language newspapers have long been concerned about relations between Asian newcomers and longtime Latino and Anglo students. Last year, representatives of the Chinatown Services Agency, which serves the social needs of the Asian population, approached Alhambra school officials proposing to hold on-campus group counseling sessions aimed at helping the newcomers assimilate and become aware of the Latino and Anglo cultures.

Julie Cheng, an agency counselor, said Alhambra school officials never responded to the proposal.

“Some of the schools are more open and more active in bringing about cultural awareness,” Cheng said. “Others just deny there is a problem. We approached Alhambra high school and they seem a little reluctant to admit to the problem.”

Cano said he was not familiar with the proposal by the Chinatown Service Agency. He said his school makes use of an extensive system of school counselors, police youth services officers, outside social workers and psychologists and student-run cultural awareness fairs to monitor tensions on campus and promote racial harmony.

Chao Hsiao-tse, a reporter with the Chinese-language newspaper World Journal, said her reporting of the Oct. 23 stabbing and earlier incidents of violence at Alhambra High was complicated by an unwillingness on the part of school officials to acknowledge the depth of ill feelings between the newcomers and the Anglo and Latino groups.

‘Find Ways to Solve It’

“If there is a problem that exists inside or outside the campus, the schools and the community should find ways to solve it,” Chao said. “Minimizing or undergrading the conflicts and problems will not help the situation.”

Last week, another local Chinese-language newspaper, the International Daily News, quoted several Asian parents criticizing the schools for not doing enough to alleviate tensions on campus between their children and established groups. The newspaper, which also functions as a mediator of sorts, published an editorial offering to intervene on behalf of parents dissatisfied with school officials.

As for charges that he and other school officials were reluctant to acknowledge any tensions, Cano said he would not apologize for focusing on the many positive things happening on his campus.

“This is homecoming week and I wish you could have seen all the positive relationships going on,” Cano said. “From our cheerleading squad that reflects every racial and social group on campus to our boy and girl of the month, who were a Latino male and an Asian female, this school bridges cultural gaps every day.

“Yes, there are some tensions and we aren’t always perfect in dealing with those tensions,” he said. “But hopefully time and growing up together will take care of the problem.”