Warming the Melting Pot

Though some Asian immigrants have successfully pursued the American dream, for others the promise of American life has proved unexpectedly harsh. War-orphaned children, elderly living in isolation, refugees working in sweatshops, culturally disoriented adolescents who turn to drugs, crime and gangs--these are some of the most pressing problems facing the Asian-Pacific communities of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County’s Asian population has exploded from 250,000 in 1970 to estimates of between 825,000 and 1.2 million today and a projected 2 million by the year 2000. By 1990, if not already, Asians will surpass blacks to become the second-largest minority in the county after Latinos. A year-long study by the Asian-Pacific Research and Development Council of the United Way of the Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Filipino, Samoan, Thai, Tongan and Vietnamese communities found “evidence of terrible and untold human need.”

To help ease the adjustment to American life and work, the study recommends that multiservice, bilingual health centers be established in areas of the county like Long Beach, the west San Gabriel Valley and the mid-Wilshire area where there are high concentrations of Asian-Pacific people. These centers would offer language classes, job training, family counseling and programs for the elderly and the young.

In the era of Proposition 13 and federal budget cuts, government has increasingly shed its responsibility for people at the bottom of the economic heap. It is time for a restoration and expansion of social services to those in desperate need--regardless of color or ethnic background. The new Asian-Pacific report rightly points out that it is time to make Los Angeles a more humane melting pot.