Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Studied : Race relations: Legal group says such incidents are underreported nationally. Dozens of cases are listed in Southern California.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans are committed daily in the United States, but law enforcement officials and prosecutors often fail to investigate such incidents adequately, according to a study released Monday by the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.

The most common locations of the hate crimes were residences, where people were assaulted or found their homes defaced with racial epithets.

“A frightening statistic is that we’re most vulnerable in our own homes,” said Kathy Imahara, an attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

In the first comprehensive study of its kind, the Washington-based consortium said that at least 30 Asian Americans died in 1993 as a result of crimes in which racial motivation was suspected or proved. Hundreds more suffered from assaults, vandalism and other crimes aimed at them because of their ethnicity.

In Southern California, 11 cases of racially motivated assault, 11 of vandalism and 10 of harassment, threats or hate mail were recorded by the consortium, which includes organizations such as Imahara’s group. Fourteen homicides of Asian Americans in the Los Angeles area are suspected, but not proved, to have been racially motivated, according to the consortium.

Additionally, among the more than 50 cases of gun-related crimes against Korean merchants in Los Angeles in 1993, 18 cases of assault and homicide are suspected to have involved possible racial motivation, according to the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

These statistics represent just a small proportion of total hate crimes against Asian Americans, because language and cultural barriers and poor record-keeping by law enforcement agencies mean that such incidents are severely underreported, the group said.

In many cases, when Asian Americans have reported hate crimes, police have failed to investigate, Imahara said.

“It’s . . . unacceptable and outrageous that these tragic incidents don’t receive the attention they ought to,” said Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

A Times poll of Southern California conducted last August found 21% of the area’s Asian residents reported that they had been victims of a hate crime in Southern California. That compares with 12% of whites, 14% of blacks and 16% of Latinos.

Hate crimes in 1993 cited in the report include:

* A five-foot sign left in the back yard of a Vietnamese American family in El Monte, with a gun strapped to it and a message that read: “Kill all Chineaz Gooks.”

* Swastikas found burned into the carpets of a Korean American family, and other symbols and epithets found on walls.

* The slaying of Sam Nang Nhem, a 21-year-old Cambodian American beaten to death by a white youth or youths in Fall River, Mass.

The consortium called on law enforcement officials to hire more bilingual officers and to work with community groups and churches to encourage more reporting of hate crimes, especially by recent immigrants. It demanded that more jurisdictions begin compiling statistics about hate crimes.

Kwoh urged citizens to report crimes they suspect of being racially motivated to police, prosecutors, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center at (213) 748-2022, the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission at (213) 974-7611, or the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission at (213) 485-4495.