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The Brogues Multiply at a Shindig With a Far Eastern Twist

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A parade of Mercedeses and Cadillacs fills the driveway of the Studio City banquet hall.

Valet parking attendants glide among the chrome and steel fuselages. Tuxedos, furs and glittering evening dresses issue from plush upholstered interiors, spike heels seeking the pavement.

A generic snapshot of American dreams fulfilled, Southern California style.

Then a pure, unadulterated, unself-conscious, disconcertingly bona fide Irish brogue resounds above the murmur of engines and voices, like the ring of a spoon against a champagne glass in the night: “Oh me goodness. How are ye?”

And the brogues multiply.

And the snapshot gains three dimensions.

On a recent Saturday night, the Sportsmen’s Lodge was hosting the 33rd annual fund-raising dance for the Columban Fathers, an order of Irish missionary priests who serve both in Asia and in Catholic churches in Los Angeles with Asian congregations.

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The event brings together Irish-Americans from the sleek anonymity of assimilation to celebrate their ethnicity. The driveway of the Sportsmen’s Lodge becomes a metaphor for arrival, an arch of triumph for one of the first American immigrant sagas, a reminder of what has been achieved since the infamous potato famine of the 1840s drove a third of the island nation to America.

American society has become obsessed with labeling groups. Well-intentioned efforts at sensitivity have spawned a language that is sometimes politically correct to the point of awkwardness, absurdity and intellectual paralysis. In the rush to pigeonhole human beings, immigrant Argentines of Jewish descent and black Puerto Ricans become Latinos. Grandchildren of the Italians and Irish--and maybe both--find themselves designated as “Anglos.”

Interesting concept, the latter, especially for people like Larry Jones, state secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a venerable group dedicated to preservation of the Irish heritage.

Jones talks to a visitor in the hall next to the bustling ballroom. Nearby, a dazzling redhead in a leather skirt, who looks not unlike Maureen O’Hara, greets an ancient and genial priest (Barry Fitzgerald?) with a hug.

Jones says the Anglo-Irish conflict continues with unabated ferocity as far as he and a lot of others are concerned.

Referring to British rule in Northern Ireland, he says, “We are fighting still to free the last six counties.”

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Jones came to this country from Dublin in 1960 as a ship’s radio officer and now runs an electronics company. His passion when he talks about being Irish is striking.

In Los Angeles “we have assimilated too well,” he says--unlike the traditionally Irish neighborhoods on the East Coast, which have been reinvigorated by recent waves of young Irish immigrants, often illegal. “Here we are homogenized, split up.”

Not tonight.

The band strikes up a jig as LAPD Deputy Chief Matthew Hunt enters the ballroom. Hunt, a 29-year veteran of the force, is an embodiment if ever there was one of the flattering side of one of America’s first ethnic stereotypes, a steely-eyed, unflappable, strong-featured Celtic cop. He greets old friend Lee McCarthy with a hearty handshake and a “How’s yourself?”

“We’re both from Cork,” McCarthy explains over the blare of the music. “Cork men. If you can’t whip us, join us.”

Hunt, whose wife Kathleen formerly had an Irish program on a Los Angeles radio station, displays the poetic side of the national character when addressing the inevitable question about the Irish inclination toward law enforcement.

“It was a secure job for the immigrants when they got here. There is also a great sense of wonderment among the Irish, a curiosity of what life is all about. You see people at their best and their worst. You have a front seat on life. You see what humanity is all about.”

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The band gives way to the next act, one that shatters stereotypes and represents the second fundamental element of the night’s ethnic celebration:

A Korean choir.

Although the crowd in the room is predominantly Irish-American, a good 15% of the elegant assembly at the banquet tables is Korean and Filipino. They are the parishioners of churches with Columban pastors in Koreatown and other new immigrant neighborhoods.

Their presence allows for a kind of yearly passing of the torch between immigrant groups, a ritual of mutual appreciation.

“The Koreans are the Irish of Asia,” says Robert McGuiness, meaning it as a compliment of course. “They are poetic and musical.”

The choir awaits its cue offstage, about 15 women and men from St. Gregory’s Church on Norton and 9th, where the Irish pastor says mass in fluent Korean, according to Theresa Kim, the conductor.

Kim offers a whispered translation of a traditional Korean love song on their program, “Waiting for my love.” Her accent makes the words sweeter:

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“In the forest, the wind blows on the moonlit water.

Is it like a lover’s song?”

The song ends melancholically, Kim says. “The lover didn’t show up.”

The choir takes the stage in a bustle of traditional purple, green and yellow robes. The people at the banquet tables lean forward. It is a serene moment, a mingling of cultures that have completed long journeys.

The choir breaks into a song in Korean: “Danny Boy.”

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