Countywide : Mother Fights Hate Acts Against Asians

The mother of two youths of Asian descent who were beaten by three men, including one who wielded a heavy metal anti-theft device known as the Club, is seeking to rally community sentiment against the growing number of hate crimes against Asians in Orange County.

“You can’t pick on someone just because of their race or color,” said Jo Ann Kanshige of Fountain Valley, a Japanese-American whose sons ages, 15 and 18, were beaten in a June 15 incident where white attackers yelled ethnic slurs. Kanshige’s sons and two Asian-American passengers had been cut off at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue by the three young white men on their way home from a drive-in movie.

One of the attackers used the Club to smash the windshield of the victims’ truck and also struck Kanshige’s 18-year-old son in the head. He required 16 stitches in his head and forehead to close the gash. Another son was struck below the knees.

Medical costs for the injured youths came to more than $1,500, which Kanshige hopes to raise through a victims’ support fund.

Huntington Beach police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

Meanwhile, Kanshige, who has enlisted the help of more than half a dozen major Japanese organizations in Los Angeles and Orange counties, has organized a community meeting to help discourage hate crimes and support the victims. It will be held Sunday at 1 p.m. at Wintersburg Presbyterian Church, 13711 Fairview Ave., in Garden Grove.

The Orange County Human Relations Commission has received reports of 14 anti-Asian assaults over the past two years. Recently, Asian community leaders and law enforcement officials in Orange County met and urged Asian-Americans in particular to begin reporting such abuses.

Kanshige said she and her husband, Mark, had a hard time dealing with their emotions after the attack. First there was shock, then anger.

“I couldn’t handle it at the time. I went to work and at noon it hit me,” she said. “I just got (mad).”

“You know when you have five kids you learn how to handle a lot of stress and situations,” she said. “But this kind of thing, I just didn’t now how to handle it.”

After seeking help from representatives of the Japanese media and legal groups, Kanshige decided to go public and lend her name to an anti-hate crime campaign.

“It hit home. You have to get involved,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to put any other parent in this same situation.”

Kanshige has asked, however, that her sons not be identified.

“I have a feeling that these attackers are close,” she said. “Like in the Orange County area.”