For Refugees, Halloween Has a Darker Side

As a 7-year-old trick-or-treater struck by a car clung to life Thursday, several Asian-American community leaders said more needs to be done to reach new immigrant parents who may be unfamiliar with the hazards of Halloween.

Hoang Minh Le, 5, was killed Halloween night and his brother, Thanh Ming Le, 7, a first-grade pupil at the Hanson Elementary School in Anaheim, remained in critical condition Thursday on life support systems at UCI Medical Center in Orange, authorities said.

The two were among a group of six children apparently trick-or-treating without adult supervision. Each brother was struck by a different car as they tried to cross busy Cerritos Avenue in the dark. Police believe the oldest child in the group was 9.

Neither of the drivers was charged, and Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Richard J. Olson said the investigation had initially been hampered because the children and parents spoke little English. Olson said other police departments had dispatched Vietnamese-speaking officers to help.

Several Vietnamese and Korean-American community leaders said that no concerted effort has been made to educate parents about the American holiday.

Halloween is not celebrated in Asia, and though children instantly thrill to the occasion, their parents may not be aware of the traffic danger, food tampering and violence that have changed the way the holiday is observed in the United States.

Though nearly every school in Orange County discussed Halloween safety in English, and many did so in Spanish or had instructional aides helping out in other languages, school officials contacted Thursday in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Stanton said no special efforts were made to reach Asian-language-speaking pupils.

“We did not send bulletins home in Vietnamese,” said Victoria Muhonen-Hernandez, principal of the Hansen Elementary School in Anaheim, where Thanh Ming Le attends first grade.

“Honestly, we don’t focus on the dangers,” said Marianne Blank, executive director of St. Anselm’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Center in Garden Grove. The center runs orientation programs and English classes for new arrivals, serving about 400 people a month.

“I feel terrible when I think about it,” Blank said. “It wouldn’t take long at all to go over all these things. It wouldn’t be hard at all to cover what you do and don’t do on Halloween.”

Blank said she would immediately add a safety segment to her orientation program, specifically discussing Halloween.

The Korea Central Daily newspaper, which sells about 15,000 copies in Orange County, did run an article a week ago warning parents to accompany their children trick-or-treating and scrutinize all goodies, said staff writer Jonathan Heo, who said he had heard of no Halloween-related problems in the Korean community.

However, the major Vietnamese-language newspapers did not carry such warnings, said Yen Do, editor of the Nguoi Viet Daily News.

“It’s a very negative thing to say, ‘Don’t trust your American neighbors,’ ” said Do, who said the paper has in past years carried only general explanations of the holiday. “That’s a very good thing for Vietnamese families, to see their children receive cookies from their American neighbors. So we don’t want to say, ‘Stop!’

“I think if the Vietnamese parents say something to their children on Halloween night, they just say watch the traffic or watch the dogs, but they don’t warn their children about poisoned cookies and crazy people,” Do added.

“I think it would be a very productive suggestion that the ethnic newspapers give some articles . . . about safety for the children,” said Eiwon Chough, a member of the Korean-American Assn. of Orange County Inc. “Some of the newcomers, they would not know what Halloween means. So they would not be aware of what’s going on. . . . Also, fireworks on the 4th of July.”

“We don’t have Halloween in Vietnam--that’s why the kids here, they like it so much,” said Mai Cong, chairman of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., another refugee service agency. “They really enjoy it, and they pressure their parents to take them out. They want to be like all the others, they want to have a good time.”

Families who have been in this country longer, however, have become cautious, she said.

“Several of my friends brought their children to the mall because it’s safer,” Cong said.

Cong said her agency used to run an orientation program for new arrivals, but the program was discontinued because of budget cutbacks and a shift in priorities toward job training programs. Cong and Blank said immigrants of all nationalities continue to need far more help and information than they usually receive on matters ranging from housing to child supervision to crime prevention.

“They think it’s going to be safer here,” Blank said. “But everything is bigger and more complicated and completely different and not safer here. . . . Life is complicated and it’s hard to learn all the things you have to learn.”

GANG ATTACK--A first-time trick-or-treater is shot for candy and mask. A16