Minority Business Owners Plan Forum to Boost Ethnic Harmony
The Minority Business Council has voted to join the Downtown Santa Ana Business Assn. and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Orange County in holding a town hall meeting in Santa Ana in early June.
This would be the first such forum for minority business owners in Orange County to air their concerns and for Santa Ana city officials and law enforcement agencies to discuss ways to increase harmony among ethnic groups in the county’s diverse population.
“This is not a gripe session,” said Manuel Pena, the council’s president and a board member of the Hispanic Chamber and the Santa Ana organization. “It’s a positive meeting to discuss what we can do now to open channels of communications between minority business owners and other members of the community.”
The groups hope to discuss what the county’s business community can do now to prevent a situation similar to the riots that occurred in Los Angeles last month.
“We need to start to take on the responsibilities to determine the future role of the minority business community in Orange County,” Pena said.
The groups will soon decide on the location of the town hall meeting, said Pena, who expects at least 100 people to attend.
Last week, more than 200 minority business owners attended the council’s first bimonthly business mixer, which was held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. The council is made up of the officials of the county’s black, Chinese-American, Latino, Korean and Vietnamese chambers of commerce, who met monthly to discuss ways to increase business among the various minority groups.
The mixer, hosted by the council and the Walt Disney Co., brought together a diverse group of people and businesses. For example, Amin David, a Latino who is president of Regal Products Inc., a tile import company in Anaheim, met with Peter Pham, a Vietnamese commercial real estate investor in Westminster, to discuss future business opportunities.
“Increasing business among ourselves will benefit many minority business owners and this will lead to a better understanding of each other’s cultures and lessen any racial tension,” Pena said. “It’s a win-win situation for everyone.”
