Asian-Americans Seek Role in L.A. Renewal : Rebuilding: Coalition urges HUD Secretary Cisneros to include them as a source to identify problems in the city and suggest solutions.

At a round-table discussion in downtown Los Angeles, Asian-American community leaders urged a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet on Friday to use members of their community as partners in the rebuilding of Los Angeles.

“We want to be included and we want to be partners with other people trying to build a new Los Angeles,” Stewart Kwoh, a founder of the Asian Pacific Americans for a New L.A., told Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Emphasizing that Asian-Americans are too often ignored, Kwoh urged Cisneros to use Asian-Americans as a resource to help define needs and solve problems facing Los Angeles.

Speaking to the more than two dozen leaders of the APANLA, a consortium of 50 community-based organizations, Cisneros gave his word that he will consult them on issues facing the city.

He said he has a deep respect for the Asian-American community and added, “You don’t have to more deeply impress on me the role this community has in the future of Los Angeles.”

During the one-hour session at the First United Methodist Church, Kwoh reminded Cisneros that suffering continues more than a year after the riots. Only about 25% of Asian-American riot victims have been able to restart their businesses, he said.

“We have tried our best to work with government entities, but frankly we have been stymied in getting meetings with high-level officials,” Kwoh said.

Ki-Suh Park, a Korean-American architect and a board member of Rebuild L.A., suggested that the federal government consider changing its policy of treating victims of natural disasters differently from those of civil disturbances.

Unlike victims of natural calamities, merchants who lost their businesses during the riots have to carry outstanding loans on their destroyed business while proving to the Small Business Administration that they can repay government loans they are seeking, he said. “That’s not right,” Park said.

After the meeting, Asian-American community leaders said the forum with Cisneros was a start. “The secretary made a pledge to include us in the planning,” Kwoh said. “I hope there is follow-through to that.”

APANLA officials said they want to meet with other Cabinet members to bring Asian-American issues to the forefront. “We’re saying if you include us as part of the planning, we are not only beneficiaries but we are contributors,” Kwoh said, noting that 1 in 10 people in Los Angeles is of Asian descent.