Messages of Hate : Vandalism at Community Center Angers Japanese-Americans

Members of a judo class were shocked when they arrived recently at a Japanese-American community center in Norwalk and discovered “Go Back to Asia” and other epithets smeared on the walls in white paint.

It was the third time in a week that the center had been vandalized. Written on one of the blackboards was, “Sorry We Trashed Your Place,” but it was the racial graffiti that stirred painful memories for some of the older members of the Southeast Japanese Community Center who recall being taken from their homes during World War II.

George Kato, 58, a member of the center for 20 years, remembers the feeling. “There were many families from our center that suffered during that period,” he said of the 1940s, when Japanese and Japanese-American people were sent to U.S. government internment camps.

Kato and other members of the cultural center believe that resentment of the economic rise of many Asian immigrants may be at the root of the vandalism.

“People are being (misled) about the power of Japan and Japanese-Americans living here,” Kato said. “We don’t want to identify with this. Japanese children have been born and raised here in America. We are Americans.”

The County Human Services Commission reports that racially motivated crimes against Asian groups have increased, said Jill Medina of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

But she attributed at least part of the increase to the rising number of people who are now willing to report incidents.

“A number of people who were assaulted physically or verbally did not report the crime because they blamed it on themselves. They hoped by ignoring it, it would go away,” Medina said.

At the community center on Gridley Road, previous break-ins and vandalism had been similarly ignored.

On Halloween night, more than 15 members had their car tires slashed. A day earlier, vandals had sprayed fire extinguishers on the floors and on the walls of the center.

There had been other acts of vandalism at the two-building center since it opened during the 1920s, but nothing to rival what occurred Nov. 7.

“They came through one of the windows and scattered records . . . all over the floor,” Kato said. “They used gallons of paint we had in the storage room and brooms to paint all over the building.”

Although they are frustrated, members say they are not thinking of moving the center. They feel a strong sense of history with the area and its people.

“After all, we’ve been there for 60 years,” Kato said. “Our pioneers purchased this property for our people to get together.”

Kato said the center, which is open to people of all backgrounds, has more than 300 families and attracts members from Monterey Park, East Los Angeles, Whittier, Huntington Beach and other areas of Orange County.

It provides classes in dance, floral arrangement, singing, kendo, judo and karate, and also has senior citizen meetings and classes for children.

“We’ve been trying to teach children the value of respect to their neighbors,” Kato said. “We want the children to learn to be good citizens.”

Angered and frustrated by the vandalism and graffiti, center members are seeking help from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

Because the crime involves racial epithets, it is labeled as a hate-crime and falls under federal jurisdiction, Lt. Ron Wagner said.

On Thursday, Assemblyman Bob Epple (D-Norwalk) and an aide to Sen. Cecil N. Green (D-Norwalk) toured the center to inspect the damage.

“Generally, people of Norwalk are accepting of people of different races,” Epple said. “What has happened here is not acceptable. We have to show the thugs in this city that this type of act will not be tolerated.”

Neighbors say they have had no problems with the center. “I don’t like what is happening to those people,” said Randy Pickett, who lives next door.

“And I don’t like the idea of these criminal types coming into our neighborhood and doing those type of things to the center,” he added.

Kato said he is puzzled by the racial attacks on the center. He is more puzzled that it is still happening more than 40 years after World War II.

“I thought we Americans were a little more sophisticated toward minority groups,” he said.

“But it’s still happening. “We’re not in the Southern states but in California.”