O.C. Group Readies Plans Aimed at Furthering Unity : Diversity: Orange County Together, formed after the L.A. riots, is working toward a climate of acceptance.

Deep in a side pocket of a shopping mall, near the remains of Santa’s village, is a storefront focusing on multiculture instead of mega-sales.

The clerks here don’t indulge in “have a nice day” pleasantries. And among the more popular displays are a portrait of an elegantly dressed mariachi and a backlighted signboard emblazoned with season’s greetings: “Remember some white people are very nice people too.”

This South Coast Plaza display is part art exhibit, part social experiment--one of the latest efforts to ease Orange County’s transformation from a largely white community to one in which the Nguyens and Garcias in the telephone book outnumber the Smiths and Joneses.

Since the Los Angeles riots almost two years ago, various groups have been experimenting with strategies to prevent upheaval and outbreaks of violence in Orange County. Their solutions have ranged from multimillion-dollar centers promoting the food and folklore of different cultures to simple living room chats.

For many community groups and social agencies, human contact and conversation are strong enough materials to form a bridge across a cultural divide. Yet others fear that celebrating and promoting diversity could actually heighten racial tensions, splintering competing groups into a Yugoslavia by the Pacific.

Even the most prominent local group promoting harmony in the county had to deal with disharmony on this issue.

Orange County Together--a nonprofit group formed in the wake of the Los Angels riots to unite residents--saw two members quit late this year because of doubts about the group’s proposed educational programs to promote cultural diversity and encourage the use of bilingual materials.

“I personally don’t want anything to do with it,” said Matthew Cunningham, a former participant and a press secretary to state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange). “They use the same old buzzword: dialogue. I just don’t agree that you have to get racial and ethnic groups together to talk to each other. You’re reinforcing a tendency to identify as a particular group. You’re segregating society. I thought we were trying to integrate society.”

But the majority of Orange County Together members are pressing on with plans to implement their recommendations of last summer, which call for development of a multicultural center, more extensive community policing, “intergroup dialogue” and increased hiring of a diverse work force by business and government.

Orange County Together and its programs have already collected donations or pledges for more than $250,000 from United Way, the Irvine Foundation and Southern California Edison Co..

“I think it’s our only hope for preventing what happened in Los Angles,” County Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder said of Orange County Together’s plans. “We need to set a climate of acceptance. I think the gang violence and the crime and the poor economy and the dissatisfaction can lead to scapegoating.”

A recent Times Poll about Orange County ethnic relations does indicate that when races don’t mingle, people are more likely to hold tough views on racial issues.

Friendships, the poll showed, are more important than contacts at work, school or church. And white residents with Latino friends are more likely than other whites to say that Latinos contribute positively to the county. The same holds true regarding Asians.

The poll also showed evidence that there is little interaction between Latinos and Asians. Just 38% of Asians said they have a close Latino friend. And Latinos were least likely of all ethnic groups to have friends of another race, according to the poll, conducted in August.

This is the type of social chemistry that has to be watched for signs of roiling, according to Ron Kuramoto, who noted that some of the most troubled neighborhoods during the Los Angeles riots were undergoing dramatic demographic shifts.

Kuramoto is a director of community programs for Coro, a Los Angeles-based social agency that has been tapped by Orange County Together to identify and train neighborhood leaders who can forge links between groups.

Coro’s trainers have been focusing on a swath of fast-changing communities in the northwestern section of Orange County where white residents and those of Vietnamese, Korean and Mexican descent live within walking--but not talking--distance of one another.

“I think there’s a sense of frustration there exacerbated by the economy,” said Kuramoto. “There’s tension when county services are cut back and there’s fewer resources to go around. There’s a perception that it’s getting more competitive among groups.”

One of the communities targeted for neighborhood leadership training is Garden Grove, which boasts a thriving commercial strip of more than 900 Korean businesses sprawling along Garden Grove Boulevard.

Signs in Korean for markets, shops and medical offices are everywhere, and recently one of the City Council members sought approval for a cement monument essentially labeling the area what it has become: “Korean Business District.”

But after longtime Garden Grove residents objected to the sign, the council tabled the idea. Some of the critics, who thought the sign could appear “unfriendly,” complained that the monument could divide groups rather than mark a tourist landmark.

“It’s not so much the sign,” said Ann Imse, a Nichols Park resident. “Unfortunately, a small number of Korean businesses are not doing a good job of reaching out to non-Korean customers. . . . Some don’t say hello when you walk in and you don’t feel welcomed. A sign would be more divisive, setting off the Korean community as a separate community at a time when it’s a problem. Maybe some day when the problem is solved then the sign wouldn’t be so bad.”

Imse noted that residents of longest standing have been those most troubled by sweeping demographic changes that have taken place in Garden Grove in the last 10 years. They expect the newcomers to assimilate English and local customs more quickly, she said.

That is in keeping with results of the Times Poll, which found that elderly white residents have substantially harder views on race relations than younger people. Almost 60% of the elderly do not work or go to church or school with anyone of another race.

Sensing this separation, many groups are putting their hopes in children and young adults to smooth over the demographic transformation of the county.

“Change takes awhile, so we have to start with the younger people,” said Tom Pritchard, a family therapist who heads the Center for Community Mediation in Irvine. “I’m trying to bring mediation into the schools as a violence-prevention technique so that basic skills include the fourth R: resolution.”

Pritchard’s center teaches lessons about resolving conflicts to volunteers at high schools in Fountain Valley, Westminster, San Clemente and Huntington Beach. And everywhere he goes, Pritchard said, he detects signs of fear.

“The Latinos feel they’re not liked. Caucasians feel they’re being overrun and swamped by uncontrolled immigration. It’s on so many minds. They’re feeling, ‘What’s safe anymore?’ ” he said. “You feel afraid on some level because something is changing. So we have to demystify the changes.”

When the Laguna Art Museum began preparing an exhibit about cultural heritage, the organizers decided that elementary school children were their prime audience.

The exhibit, now on display at South Coast Plaza, will eventually move to Orange County classrooms. With backing from the Pacific Mutual Foundation, the museum commissioned works by nine artists who explored such themes as childhood memories of Vietnam.

“We had other exhibits that traveled to schools that dealt with standard art issues like form and color and line,” said museum director Charles Desmarais. “But we felt we needed an exhibit to get kids to think about cultural heritage. Some of these works might be considered controversial, but we didn’t want the artists to talk down to kids. We wanted them to raise tough questions.”

But to their surprise, the shopping mall exhibit attracting most of its visitors from among those who were on eye level with the art: adults.

When Orange County Together starts putting together its programs in late January, its target audience will include children, teen-agers and adults.

For the young, the organization wants to create “peer groups” and partnerships between business and the public schools. In the planning stage is also a K-12 education curriculum “depicting the diversity” of the county.

That might include material that addresses homosexuality, said Robert F. Gentry, a member of Orange County Together and a Laguna Beach councilman.

For adults, Orange County Together is exploring a plan to create vocational training programs to better match business needs. They also want to prod people to talk through a series of “living room” dialogues designed to introduce neighbors from different backgrounds to each other.

To date, the organization’s ideas are mostly on paper and the members have kept a low profile.

But participants like Keith Plant, a vice president of Western Digital Corp. in Irvine, and Becky Esparza, chairwoman of the county’s Human Relations Commission, say the group is showing signs of life.

Orange County Together has collected sizable donations, they note, and the group is poised for its second stage, which will start with a meeting late in January at Western Digital’s corporate headquarters. Earlier this month, surveys were sent out to nearly 200 participants to list volunteer projects they would like to work on. In January, they will narrow the list down to a few favorites.

“What is the second phase?” asked H. Fred Mickelson, a vice president of Southern California Edison in Orange County and co-chairman of Orange County Together. “To do as we said at the beginning. We do not choose to go through this exercise where we create a group, reaching findings, binding it together and then letting it gather dust.

“We have to do something.”