Asians, Islands People Feel Sense of Hostility : New Wave of Prejudice Documented in Report; Problems With Police, School Officials Outlined

In her job as an Irvine Valley College counselor for disadvantaged students, Audrey Yamagata-Noji has sensed the resentment building.

Recently, she said, she has seen a growing amount of anti-Asian graffiti, and many of her Asian friends have told her about encountering increased prejudice.

She calls it the return of the “Yellow Peril attitude.”

Report Released Friday

Yamagata-Noji’s observations reflect the findings of a report released Friday by Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, which indicate that Asians and Pacific Islanders continue to battle resentment and hostility because of widespread cultural misunderstandings.

The 130-page report, issued by the Asian and Pacific Islander Advisory Committee, describes problems in relationships between the state’s fastest-growing minority group--one out of 10 Californians is of Asian or Pacific Islander descent--and law enforcement officials, school administrators and other public servants.

The study also said Asians and Pacific Islanders who have been victimized rarely report crimes because of fear and a lack of understanding of this country’s legal system.

Compiled after four public hearings in the state, the report offers 38 recommendations to alleviate these problems, including the development of police outreach programs, aggressive recruitment of police officers who speak an Asian/Pacific Islander language, the development of school programs that encourage students to share their cultural differences and organized opposition to a proposed English-only amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

‘Has to Stop’

“There is an intolerable level of hostility against Asian/Pacific Islanders throughout this state, and it has to stop,” Van de Kamp declared at a news conference.

The 1980 census counted nearly 1.4 million Asian/Pacific Islanders in California. About 60% of them are foreign-born because of increased immigration from Asian countries since 1965 and the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees that began in 1975.

A 1987 report by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission said that in 1987, the number of hate crimes hit a record high, partly because of increasing “white power” groups. Of the 79 racially motivated crimes that year, 19% were directed at Asians, the report noted.

Martin Lee, a Los Angeles attorney who served on the state committee, has experienced such an attack. He said that last year, while he was sitting at a bar with his brother and another Chinese friend, a couple of whites asked, “Where’s the Honda convention?”

“When we told them to leave us alone, they asked us where were our cameras,” Lee said. “It ended up in a big wrestling match.”

To end such attacks, the report also calls for:

- Legislation to require law enforcement officials to collect and report information on any criminal acts that appear to be motivated by the victim’s race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

- Development of community and police-partnership programs to improve communication and understanding between immigrants and police officers.

- Concentrated efforts to make the Asian/Pacific Islander communities more aware of civil and consumer-rights laws.

- A requirement that new teachers complete courses on the cultural diversity of California students and ways to foster relationships among students of different backgrounds.

Yamagata-Noji, a Japanese-American who grew up in Long Beach, finds that dealing with the issue of college admissions is especially disconcerting, as do other Asians who hold jobs on college campuses. In that area, according to the attorney general’s study, the term “diversity” has become “a euphemism for keeping the numbers of Asian-Americans down.

“The public has this perception that--well, taking the case of Vietnamese--that Vietnamese students are either valedictorians or gang members. There seems to be no middle there,” said Yamagata-Noji, a Santa Ana Unified School District trustee and a member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

College admissions policies that exclude large numbers of Asians “seem to be saying to white students that whites are being displaced by Asians,” she said.

Asians and Pacific Islanders who fail to report racial incidents to police do so because it is culturally ingrained in many Asians to be passive and ignore racial taunts, according to the Rev. Marvin Harada of the Orange County Buddhist Church in Anaheim.

“It does make them angry, but rather than retaliate in some way, most Asians see things in the Oriental way,” Harada said. “Many (non-Asians) might perceive that as being chicken or cowardly, but the Oriental way of looking at life is to just be the way you want to be. Then again, sometimes racial taunts aren’t worth responding to.”

Harada said he was recently surprised when teen-agers who frequent the temple told him that they have been experiencing racial taunts at area schools.

Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center, said he agrees with the recommendations in the state advisory committee’s report and hopes that they will be backed up with action.

‘Specific Legislation’

“There are terrible problems with hate crimes in (the Los Angeles area) and the Police Department has been trying to monitor them. Many groups want more Asian officers on the police force, but there have been concrete barriers keeping that from happening,” Kwoh said. “The attorney general needs to back up these concepts with specific legislation or else they will never be realized.”

Dale Minami, a San Francisco attorney who chaired the committee, suggested that police could successfully recruit more Asian officers if they lowered their English-proficiency standards.

“For example, if an officer did not speak English too well, but he could speak two dialects of Chinese, they should put him on the force and allow him to work only in Chinese areas of town,” Minami suggested.

That idea did not appeal to Lt. Jim Darr of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Asian Task Force.

“No way. This is the United States of America, an English-speaking country,” he said. “If you were in Japan, would they let you on the police department just because you spoke English?” Beyond that, Darr said, the department has already taken several of the steps recommended by the committee.

‘Real Nervous’

Other response to the report was positive.

Jean Akashi, director of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Asian/Pacific American Education Commission, said it is imperative for teachers to be educated about these cultures because common occurrences in this country often frighten immigrant children.

“Sending students to see a counselor is usually no big deal, but some Asian students think only crazy people see counselors, so they get real nervous,” said Akashi, whose commission acts as a liaison between the district and the Asian/Pacific Islander community. “We support any program that would help educate our teachers and administrators (about) these cultural differences.”

School board member Warren Furutani also praised the report’s recommendation to get immigrant parents more involved in schools.

“The school board is already working to do that by concentrating on hiring more administrators from the Asian/Pacific Islander community who will go out and earn the trust of parents who may be fearful of officials,” he said.