COMMENTARY : In a Cooler Climate, Garden Grove’s Ethnic Strains Unwind

A woman steps to the podium to express her anger about the abundance of foreign language signs in the city. A Korean man comes forward to protest a proposed ordinance requiring the English language on business signs.

The place is Garden Grove, and the issue spawns a heated debate that stretches well into the evening, punctuated by occasional fist pounding, exasperated sighs from the audience, discourses on civil rights and the English-only initiative, and accusations and counter-accusations of discrimination. Anti-Asian hate flyers mysteriously fill the City Council chambers.

A few months later, 15 people are gathered in a circle, sipping coffee and nibbling on egg rolls in a Korean-owned carpet shop on Garden Grove Boulevard, the pulse of the Korean merchant and social center of Orange County. They are there for the third session of a dialogue.

The Orange County Human Relations Commission, with support from the city of Garden Grove and the Korean Chamber of Commerce, brought together this group of Korean merchants and Anglo residents to reduce simmering tensions and discuss issues of mutual concern. Many are the same players from the council chambers, but in a different setting and working under different rules.

A Korean immigrant explains to the group how in spite of his 20-plus years in the United States and his U.S. education, he never entirely forgets that he is different. He has an Asian face and speaks with an accent; he’s always a little bit an outsider. Hence the love for “Koreatown,” a kind of emotional/social sanctuary where one can breathe the luxurious air of an insider for a few minutes each day.

A longtime Garden Grove resident talks about feeling like an outsider in “Koreatown.” Being American is about being united as one community, she says, not creating separate clusters within a city.

Garden Grove, once dotted with orange groves and home to the annual Strawberry Festival, was already stretching beyond its rural, small-town roots well before the Korean immigrants began to arrive in the mid-’70s.

Veteran residents point to the construction of the Garden Grove Freeway as the beginning of the end of Garden Grove Boulevard as a thriving hometown business district. The boulevard slumped into economic decline, and the Koreans, like so many immigrants before them, discovered in the boulevard a tremendous opportunity to prosper and be self-sufficient in their adopted land.

The fact that not one of the participating Korean merchants is a resident of Garden Grove raised a sore point: Outsiders. What is the acid test, participants wondered, for loyalty to one’s community? Does one who owns commercial property have less of a stake in a community than one who owns residential property? How long must one reside in a community to establish a sincere commitment? One interesting discovery from the dialogue: The mayor is the only native-born resident of Garden Grove in the group.

Differing cultural values can also create tension. For example, immigrants have an intense drive to succeed, for their children to succeed. Assumption: Native-born Americans are not hard-working, not goal-oriented, don’t care if their children get an education. Assumption: Koreans are elitist, too status-driven.

Participants adjust the focus on their cultural lenses for a moment. “Of course we want good things for ourselves and our children. But there are many definitions of success,” an Anglo participant says to agreeing nods. “I understand,” a Korean man responds. “But this broader interpretation of success is a luxury for a new immigrant. Perhaps for the next generation.”

And what about senior citizens? The American institution of nursing homes becomes a topic for discussion. Koreans explain traditional Asian values of respect for elders and the extended family unit. Assumption: Americans don’t care about their elders, don’t have a strong commitment to family. Anglo-Americans share emotional anecdotes about the frustration, the pain in choices made for aging parents, about exploring innovative solutions to shortcomings in today’s elderly care. A critical value, they point out, is independence, to not be a burden to one’s adult children.

One Korean member mentions that local Korean leaders are exploring options for elderly housing, because, given the alternative, many Korean elders would rather be on their own. The imaginary lines that divide “us” from “them” begin to blur.

In another session, dialogue members talked about awarenesses that had been created as a result of the meetings. “I found that Americans were more generous, kinder than I had thought before,” one participant said in a statement seconded by other Koreans. Their original, negative impression was no doubt helped along by their experiences in City Council debates.

Again, the lines blur as to who is the insider and who is the outsider.

One of the future challenges for the dialogue members will be to explore how to help the Korean and Anglo communities adjust the focus on their lenses as well, to move beyond assumptions about culture or newcomers versus old-timers and work together to reduce community tensions.

A similar challenge, or opportunity, exists for Orange County in general. Just as Garden Grove Boulevard is no longer what it was before the freeway, so too has the county’s face changed in recent years.

The County Board of Supervisors created the Human Relations Commission to transform inter-ethnic conflicts into opportunities to build strength from our differences. We can accept our growing diversity and work to develop mutual respect and understanding, or we can stubbornly cling to old ideas that will lead us down the path to inter-ethnic conflict and violence.