On Diversity and ‘Getting Along’ in Orange County and Its Locales

* The Anti-Defamation League was very pleased when we heard that the Los Angeles Times was conducting a poll and writing an extensive four-part series on diversity in our community. If there is one lesson to be learned from the Los Angeles uprising, it is the need to hear the viewpoints of our neighbors, especially those who are different from ourselves.

However, the articles tended to focus on how “others” with different-colored skins have altered the face of the community; as if the community only belongs to white residents. This contradicts your own data that shows that most Orange County Latino residents are native-born citizens.

By concentrating on a white, and in many cases xenophobic, perspective, the implicit assumption is that our community’s social ills are caused by newcomers from a different ethnic background. There are, of course, a myriad of reasons for the ethnic tensions in our community.

In the future, why not provide more exposure to those who are listening and trying to understand the perspective of people different from themselves?

JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

Regional director

Anti-Defamation League

Santa Ana

* I have read the article “We’re Not All Getting Along” (Oct. 24) on discrimination and immigration in Orange County. As a Latino living in Los Alamitos, which is predominantly white, I was surprised to see that Latinos are most discriminated against. I have not noticed discrimination against me or other Latinos in school or in sports. My father has noticed it quite a bit in business, and my mother has watched discrimination in education. Luckily, our family have many friends of different races and backgrounds.

People tend to hide their feelings towards others most of the time. It was a shock to learn of swastikas and Nazi propaganda put anonymously into lockers at Los Alamitos High School last year. More recently, there was a cross burned on the lawn of a citizen living in Rossmoor, a community of supposedly intelligent people. I agree with John Palacio, who explained in your article that discrimination is just “ignorance.” Putting people into groups misleads other people’s decisions towards the individual.

Society can only change its way of thinking through communication. Children can change the way groups are looked at by not always believing what their parents think. They need to learn and understand about others better than the adults have done before.

TOM GRAJEDA

Cypress