President Greeted With Pleas for Help

They came in white gauze robes, saffron-colored turbans, silk tunics and lace finery that symbolized their Asian, African, Pacific Island and Middle Eastern heritage and their respect for President Bush.

Many of the Cambodians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Ethiopians, Iraqis, Sikhs and others who converged on Mile Square Regional Park also had a message: a plea for Bush to use his power to help bring peace, freedom and democracy to their strife-torn homelands.

“Cambodia is not free yet,” said Sandy A. Blankenship, a Cambodian-American from Cypress. “We want peace. We ask the president to continue to support a free Cambodia.”

Wondem WoldeEmanual came from Covina with a contingent of several dozen fellow Ethiopians from around Southern California to draw attention to the civil war in their native land.

“We’re here to plead with President Bush to settle the chaotic condition in our country,” said the 45-year-old bank vice president. “We want Bush to call a meeting outside our country and to invite all the armed forces to set up a transitional government.”

And as Bush began his speech praising Asian and Pacific Islanders for their hard work and patriotism, a cluster of Iraqi-American women swathed in black woolen and silk robes held aloft placards proclaiming: “We Mourn 150,000+ killed Iraqis.”

“We are asking Mr. Bush to lift the (economic) sanctions from the Iraqi people,” said Ilham Alsarraf, a 40-year-old psychologist from Burbank who traveled to Orange County with members of the Cerritos-based American Iraqis for Democracy and Justice. “It is the children who are suffering, not Saddam.”

But Bush would not be moved. When he made clear his support of continued sanctions against the regime of Saddam Hussein in forceful remarks Sunday, Alsarraf and her companions booed and chanted, “Mourn Iraq.” But their voices were drowned out by cheers from the crowd, many of whom cited Bush’s commitment to Operation Desert Storm as the reason they will vote for him again in 1992.

Alsarraf is thinking twice about supporting Bush again. So is Chris Wu, 55, an electrical engineer from Monterey Park.

For Wu and his Chinese-American friends, the issue is the 1989 massacre at Tien An Men Square and the student protesters who remain jailed in his homeland for espousing democracy. At the edge of the crowded media platform Wu waved a banner that read: “We Love Bush and Human Rights. China, Improve Human Rights or no MFN.”

Bush must not renew China’s MFN, or most-favored-nation trade status, without attaching demands for improved human rights in China, said Wu, a native of Shanghai who came to the United States 11 years ago and became a citizen just in time to vote for Bush in 1988.

When Wu heard his president say Sunday that conditions must not be attached to trade agreements with China, he grimaced and said he might have to reconsider voting for Bush in 1992.

“Doesn’t he see that he has the power to change the Chinese government and to force them to improve human rights?” he asked.

But most in the crowd were content to put aside the issues and bask in the glow of presidential congratulations for Asian-Americans and their growing success in this country.

“It’s important for me to welcome the president when he comes here to Orange County,” said Luong Phan, a 63-year-old Vietnamese from El Toro who wore a Boy Scout uniform, hat and all, to Sunday’s celebration.

“We want to tell him (Bush) that we are very happy in this country of hope and opportunity,” said the former translator who arrived in the United States last October after serving 6 1/2 years in a Vietnamese jail.

“Auntie” Marie Kovich of Carson had no political cause to press Sunday, and after Bush’s short speech she rested in the shade of a fir tree, still uplifted from her encounter with the president.

The 76-year-old representative of the Hawaii’s Daughters Guild of Southern California had been through the presidential receiving line and had even arranged to send two feather leis to Bush’s personal physician in the White House--to be passed on to the President, of course. But Kovich had something more immediate in mind.

“When I get home, I’m going to plasticize my hand because he shook it!” she exclaimed.