Immigrants Learn What Legal System Can Do for Them

A tiny office at St. Anselm’s Episcopal Church in Garden Grove was converted into a free law workshop Saturday, where a municipal judge, several lawyers and interpreters helped answer legal questions from Asian immigrants and dispensed dozens of bilingual pamphlets.

Many Asian immigrants and refugees are hesitant to seek legal aid and get involved in the American court system, said Orange County Municipal Court Judge B. Tam Nomoto. Moreover, many of them do not understand the system because of language and cultural differences.

“In the Asian culture, it is taught not to air problems to strangers,” said Nomoto, who is of Japanese descent. “It’s considered a disgrace in the family to be in court. But we are trying to encourage the use of the American court system and to have a better understanding of it.”

Questions About Family Law

The workshop, which began at 10 a.m., drew Asians who were curious about the workshop and others who had questions about family law, refugee status and business contracts. The six lawyers and interpreters who spoke Vietnamese, Cambodian, Tagalog (Filipino), Japanese, Mandarin and Korean were all volunteers.

Veatric Tran, 39, of Garden Grove visited the workshop to ask lawyers about her separation from her husband of 13 years. Tran, who came to the United States in 1976, has had prior counseling with other lawyers. But she said the workshop gave her a chance to ask more questions without spending a lot of money.

“When I first went to a lawyer a year ago, I had so many questions because I couldn’t understand English terms,” Tran said haltingly. “I come here early to ask more questions.”

Konthea Kang, 40, of Long Beach came to the workshop to get legal advice for her clients at the Community Rehabilitation Indonesian Placement program in Long Beach, where she works with disabled refugees and immigrants. She said she learned about the workshop in an Indonesian community newsletter.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I came here,” Kang said. “My clients have many questions about rent problems, loans and refugee status and this is giving me a way to help answer some of their questions.”

Kang compared the workshop to a law seminar where she is able to ask as many questions as she wants for her clients.

“They ask me what they are suppose to do when their rent increase gets so high that it is more than their salary,” Kang said. “It makes them so depressed. They don’t know what to do so I try to get the information here so I can tell them.”

Jim Tanizaki, an Orange County deputy district attorney, said he volunteered to give legal advice because he wanted to help the Asian community.

“I used to be in general practice and I know I can give advice on things that aren’t only settled in criminal court,” said Tanizaki, who was called upon to answer two clients’ questions about contract problems. “I wanted to give whatever I can to help the Asian community.”