Students Learn About Bias --Their Own : Race relations: Hoping to unmask stereotypes, Pitzer College students present eye-opening workshops at three local high schools.

Oh, we’re not prejudiced, students at Mark Keppel High School told Pitzer College sophomore Cliff Chu. No way.

Then Chu, a Mark Keppel alumni, showed them the pictures, including ones of a white man and a Latina, and asked for reactions. The white man, the students guessed, is probably a doctor or a lawyer. And the Latina is probably lazy and stuck at home, they said.

The exercise unearthed stereotypes that stunned even the students who had voiced the opinions, and it forced them to rethink their attitudes in a way that most had never done before, Chu said.

This semester, as part of a pilot project, 20 students from Pitzer College in Claremont led several classes at high schools in the Alhambra School District on soul-searching exercises toward multicultural understanding. The Pitzer project is part of a larger, ongoing effort to ease ethnic tension in the district, where conflicts between Latinos and Asians escalated into fistfights last year.

At Mark Keppel High, tensions are masked by everyday civilities that give the impression of relative harmony, said Chu, 19.

“As I observed more and more, I realized that there are a lot of racial stereotypes and racial tensions that aren’t necessarily brought out but are hidden inside,” he said. “It seemed like a lot of students weren’t aware of their own inner thoughts toward other ethnicities until a little exercise, like bringing out pictures.”

Small, ethnically mixed groups of Pitzer students visited three classrooms at three of the district’s high schools for a total of 21 hours and developed sample lesson plans on diversity issues. Before their visits, the college students researched ways to resolve ethnic conflict and studied the district’s sweeping demographic changes, which have resulted in Asians outnumbering Latinos and other ethnic groups. Wednesday, Pitzer students presented their findings and recommendations to district administrators.

The lesson plans created by the Pitzer students showed a youthful flair. In one class, the college students tossed a salad to demonstrate the idea of ethnic groups mixing; in another class, they played music by the hip-hop group Arrested Development and a Japanese salsa band as a way to show how music appreciation can cross ethnic lines. Mostly, the Pitzer leaders recommended exercises designed to force students to confront stereotypes.

For example, at Alhambra High, in a skit on ethnic stereotypes, Pitzer student Sarah Morganstein pretended that she wanted Chau Phan to help with her homework “because all you (Asian Americans) are good in math.” Actually, Phan’s character responded, he had failed math. The students roared.

At San Gabriel High School, sophomore Armando Galang said he enjoyed an exercise led by three Pitzer students on how his school is different from the one on the TV show “Beverly Hills, 90210.” The discussion brought up issues that he had not thought about much before--such as how the TV students are all white and rich, unlike the population at San Gabriel.

“It made me think about prejudice,” said Galang, 15.

Mark Keppel sophomore Cyndi Vuong said the Pitzer students’ class unleashed tensions.

“It’s really good to finally let our feelings out,” said Vuong, 15.

But another Mark Keppel sophomore felt uncomfortable with an exercise in which students were asked to act out stereotypes associated with ethnic groups. Adele Sagun, 15, said she didn’t want to “act” Latino.

“I thought about my Latino friend going to Harvard,” she said.

The Alhambra district’s curriculum committee will review the Pitzer students’ lesson plans and distribute appropriate ones to teachers, said Supt. Heber J. Meeks, who added that he was impressed with the students’ presentations.

The district, which includes the largest number of Chinese American students in the United States, is roughly 48% Asian American, 37% Latino, 15% white and 1% black. Last February, racial tensions between Latinos and Asian Americans erupted into two days of fistfights at Mark Keppel High; 24 students were expelled and three were charged with battery.

In 1991, a group of Latino students beat up two Chinese American brothers at San Gabriel High School. District officials said such incidents are rare, but the fights prompted parents to demand changes.

The Pitzer project is an offshoot of efforts by the district’s Human Relations Advisory Committee and the Multi-Cultural Community Assn. of the San Gabriel Valley. Both groups are working with district officials on plans to improve ethnic relations; so far, the groups have surveyed the district’s high school students on their opinions about ethnic diversity and, this fall, created a pilot conflict-resolution class at Mark Keppel High.

Pitzer College Prof. Jose Calderon, who is a member of both groups and a parent in the Alhambra district, received an $8,000 grant to organize another project involving his class, “Social Responsibility and the Community.” The grant is from the Ohio Campus Compact, a coalition of colleges that promotes social change through student involvement. Through the compact, the Pitzer students’ lesson plans and reports will be available to schools nationwide.

The Pitzer students’ reports have not yet been released outside the Alhambra district, but Calderon already has fielded several inquiries from other districts. Callers included a teacher from Pomona High School, where more than 100 Latino and black students fought after a racial confrontation Nov. 19.

Pomona High School Principal Norman Y. Fujimoto has not read the Pitzer reports, but he applauded the idea. The school has organized assemblies on race relations but always is looking for more ideas, he said.

“Just like anything else, you need to work at it,” he said. “It’s never enough.”

Alhambra High School teacher Sam Coulter said he has few opportunities to teach students about ethnic diversity in his 10th-grade world history class. The three Pitzer students who visited his class were able to concentrate on the subject and relate to the high school students, who are close in age, he said. The exercises included small-group discussion.

Afterward, Coulter noticed a change in his class. Students no longer groaned about being assigned to groups without their friends, and, in one case, a Latina and Asian student who hadn’t talked before became friends, apparently as the result of a group discussion. Also, students are cracking down on a Latino teen-ager who constantly makes racial insults.

“Other kids say: ‘Come on. That’s really stupid,’ ” Coulter said. “They identified his remarks as being stereotypical. Before, it was: ‘If it doesn’t affect me, no interest.’ ”