Film Aims for Happy Ending to Ethnic Conflict : Vietnamese: TV actor stars in instructional videos to help local police ‘bridge the cultural gap’ with newest Americans.

As one of the stars of television’s “21 Jump Street,” Dustin Nguyen is accustomed to being under hot lights and in front of a camera.

That’s where he found himself Saturday, but this time the filming, which took place in a local hotel, wasn’t meant for television. It was meant for Orange County law enforcement officials.

Nguyen was contributing his acting skills to the making of an instructional videotape aimed at raising police officers’ awareness of cultural differences in the Vietnamese community.

The 27-year-old Anaheim Hills resident appeared at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers dressed in blue jeans, a sleeveless multicolored vest and cowboy boots. For purposes of the taping, Nguyen agreed to wear a more conservative blue Reebok sweatshirt, but he would not part with the small hoop earring in his left ear.

Nguyen, who plays an undercover police officer on the popular television program, said he couldn’t refuse the opportunity to “bridge the cultural gap” between the Vietnamese community and American law enforcement officials.

“I’ve always felt there is a lot of negative representation in the Vietnamese community with the gangs and the lack of cooperation with the police force,” he said. “Problems arise from ignorance. I think it’s to the officers’ benefit to understand who they are dealing with culturally.”

The video, which is the second in a two-part series, seeks to show officers that a better understanding of culturally and ethnically sensitive situations can make their jobs easier and at the same time boost their image in minority communities.

The video notes that since the mid-1970s, more than 1 million Vietnamese refugees have immigrated to the United States, bringing with them 10,000 years of cultural and religious traditions. Forty percent of this new Vietnamese-American population has settled in California, primarily in the southern part of the state, according to the video.

Filmed primarily in Little Saigon in Garden Grove and Westminster, “With Respect,” the video’s title, employed about 100 volunteers from the community to act out about 30 scenes that may accentuate cultural differences.

The earlier video dealt with raising officers’ awareness of the Latino culture and was filmed last December.

Following a June 14 presentation to local police chiefs, all of Orange County’s police departments will receive copies of the training videos. The project was sponsored by the Orange County Human Relations Commission and was produced in conjunction with the Anaheim, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, San Clemente, Fullerton and Westminster police departments, as well as the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The 12-minute videos are being produced on an $11,000 budget and are intended primarily to be shown to officers at their roll calls before they go out on patrol.

“They are short films but they are meant to be part of cultural awareness training, which is becoming increasingly important to police because the demographics of the county are changing,” said Vicki Plevin, a staff member of the Human Relations Commission and the videos’ producer.

“The videos are composed primarily of interviews with Vietnamese people and police officers who work with the Vietnamese community,” she added. “The officers are describing the techniques they use for effective interactions and the Vietnamese are describing their own culture for the benefit of police officers.”