Quayle Embraces O.C. Immigrants : Politics: Message of inclusion at Little Saigon sharply contrasts with that of presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan.

Vice President Dan Quayle warned Wednesday that the current epidemic of Japan-bashing has increased racial tensions in American neighborhoods and threatened an international trade war that could devastate the nation’s economy.

“This type of immoderate rhetoric must stop,” Quayle said in a speech to about 400 people in Westminster’s Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam. “It tends to escalate, it can turn to violence and confrontation and it is catching innocent Asian-Americans in the cross-fire.”

The vice president spoke about cooperation and the opportunities being created by evolving relations between the United States and Pacific Rim nations. But at the same time, he said, the political atmosphere has been charged by traded insults.

“We have heard an unfortunate war of words, with insults being traded across the Pacific,” Quayle said. “It is wrong and it is stupid.”

The vice president referred specifically to a Japanese member of Parliament who called American workers “lazy” earlier this year and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), who was criticized recently for a joke he told about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

“A stable and prosperous world depends on cooperation, not confrontation, between Washington and Tokyo,” he said. “As barriers rise, economies would crumble, factories would shut down and workers would be forced to sit home, resentful and angry. . . . We’ve won the Cold War, let us not replace it with a trade war.”

Quayle’s visit to Little Saigon was billed as a non-campaign event, meaning the trip is being paid for by the White House. But his message of inclusion for new immigrants and expanding relations with Pacific Rim nations was a sharp contrast with the “America First” theme of GOP challenger Pat Buchanan.

Since President Bush’s landslide wins Tuesday in the Michigan and Illinois primaries, the reelection campaign says it has clinched the GOP nomination and will now shift its focus to the general election in November.

But in a press conference, Quayle said he still expects Buchanan to campaign in California’s June 2 primary, and he continued to treat the challenger as a hostile opponent.

“Pat Buchanan is a protectionist; Pat Buchanan is an isolationist,” Quayle told reporters. “He excludes people from the Republican Party. We want to include more people in the Republican Party.

“That’s one of the reasons I am here talking to people of the Asian-American community--to let them know they should feel very welcome in our party,” Quayle continued. “Pat Buchanan would exclude you if you didn’t have the right pedigree.”

Wednesday’s visit was Quayle’s second to Little Saigon. He appeared on the same street in 1990 to open a Republican headquarters that was aimed at tapping a rich new source of support for GOP candidates.

Many of the new immigrants eligible to vote have registered as Republicans because the GOP was the party in control of the White House when they arrived in the United States. But they also associate the GOP with anti-communism and Democrats with the Vietnam anti-war movement.

As a result, the Orange County Republican Party has worked aggressively to win over the new voters. It has set up registration tables outside the naturalization ceremonies. And it has escorted a parade of top Republican dignitaries to the streets of Westminster, including Bush, his wife, Barbara, Gov. Pete Wilson and U.S. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.).

On Wednesday, Quayle walked briefly through a grocery store and the Hao Binh shopping center next door, where he was warmly greeted by store owners and customers. He also met privately in the Dynasty Chinese Seafood Restaurant with about 40 Asian-American community leaders to discuss evolving relations and conditions in several Asian countries.

At the noon speech, the vice president also faced a group of quiet but sign-waving protesters opposed to the Administration’s recent decision to recommend that Vietnamese refugees living in Asia return home to Vietnam.

Quayle said after his speech that the White House policy has not changed and that it is still opposed to “forced repatriation.” He also said the President is interested in improving relations with the Vietnamese government, but he said progress will depend on a resolution of the questions surrounding American prisoners of war and the missing in action.

In his speech, Quayle noted that new immigrants to the United States have suffered discrimination for generations. Then, speaking to newcomers from Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Laos and other Asian countries, the vice president said he carried a message from President Bush: “You belong here, this is your home.”

“My friends, that declaration is as true as if you had been born in Los Angeles or Indianapolis, Ind.,” he said. “When the authors of the Constitution began with the words, ‘We the people,’ they didn’t mean ‘We the people of European ancestry.’ ”