CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / PROPOSITION 187 : Asian American Groups Organize to Fight Measure : Activists say this is the first issue to draw such a grass-roots response. Still, there is significant support for denying services to illegal immigrants.

The campaign to defeat Proposition 187 has spawned an unprecedented grass-roots movement in California’s diverse Asian American communities, bringing politically savvy third-generation Chinese and Japanese Americans working side by side with newer Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and Cambodian immigrants.

“Even though this is the most insidious, mean-spirited initiative, it really provides us with an organizing opportunity,” said Miya Iwataki, co-chairwoman of Californians United Against Proposition 187. The Nov. 8 ballot measure would prohibit health, education and social services for illegal immigrants.

Iwataki and other veteran activists in Southern and Northern California say this is the first time a statewide ballot measure has generated such interest in the Asian American community, which has a statewide population of more than 2.8 million. They hope that the campaign’s legacy will be a united Asian American political bloc that can translate into political clout.

Not all Asian Americans oppose the so-called “save our state” initiative on the November ballot. Although they may not be vocal or organized, many Asian Americans plan to vote for Proposition 187 and believe that the measure will benefit them.

Their rationale is no different from the measure’s other supporters. They say California cannot afford to continue providing services to people who are here illegally when the state government and residents are struggling in these financially strapped times. And, they add, the policy makes a mockery of the law.

“It’s like saying, ‘Hey, break the law, come into our country and we’ll provide you all the services you need,’ ” said Gary Kim, president of the Korea American Republican Assn. of Los Angeles. “People tend to see this as a race issue. But I see it as what is right and what is wrong.”

Chet Wong, a Chinese American teacher who was born in Los Angeles, compares illegal immigrants to unarmed invaders. “We’re being invaded across our borders, and the federal government is not doing anything about it,” he said.

To date, the only organized Asian American group pushing Proposition 187 seems to be Asian Americans for Border Control in Sylmar. Spokesman Gil Wong says illegal immigrants are unfairly taking advantage of American resources. His 10-member group is part of the bigger Orange County-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform.

Wong added that Asian American organizations and activists opposing the initiative are acting out of self-interest. Social workers, lawyers, health care providers and teachers have a financial stake in having illegal immigrants, he said. “They wouldn’t have their jobs if there were no illegal immigrants. But the taxpayers are not in the business of giving them job security.”

On the other side, hundreds of volunteers and more than 60 organizations--ranging from the venerable Chinese American Citizens Alliance and Japanese American Citizens League to the younger Thai Community Development and United Cambodian Community--form Asian Pacific Islanders Against Proposition 187, the Asian contingent of Californians United Against Proposition 187.

In Los Angeles, organizers have targeted about 30,000 Asian American voters in heavily Asian communities. Volunteers, many of them students from area universities, are working the phones in the evenings to reach Asian American voters and encourage them to vote against Proposition 187.

According to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates, Asians made up less than 10% of the more than 1.1 million illegal immigrants living in California in 1992. Two-thirds of the 100,000 illegal immigrants from Asia were Filipinos.

The legal status of Asians is not the issue, opponents say.

“We’re all going to be affected whether we’re illegal immigrants or we’ve been born and raised here, as long as we’re racially and ethnically visible people of color,” said Iwataki, a third-generation Japanese American. “If we look Asian, if we speak with an accent, we’re going to be asked to provide documentation.”

Quynh Tram Nguyen, a Vietnamese who came to California legally as a refugee in 1984, says it is unfair to dismiss the contributions of newer arrivals to the state’s work force--even if they are in the country illegally.

Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Center, the only service agency for Thais in Los Angeles, says Proposition 187 would hurt her clients because many have overstayed their visas after coming here as tourists.

Meanwhile, the United Cambodian Community organization is campaigning to defeat the measure even though most Cambodians have legal refugee status, said Vora Kanthoul, executive director of the group. Based in Long Beach, where an estimated 35,000 Cambodians live, the organization believes that the initiative could have the effect of picking on all people who look foreign and do not speak English well, he said.

Volunteers for Asian Pacific Islanders Against Proposition 187 have used such major community functions as Nisei Week in Little Tokyo in August, the Moon Festival in Chinatown in September and the Korean Parade in Koreatown this month to spread the word.

Last month, after two naturalization ceremonies at the Los Angeles Convention Center, volunteers registered 1,600 new voters--half of them Asian. Two hundred volunteers are expected to attend the next two naturalization events Oct. 20 and 21 to sign up more voters.

Asians, who are 10% of California’s population, make up about 5% of the state’s registered voters. In Los Angeles County, more than 700,000 people with Asian Pacific Islander surnames are eligible to vote, but only a fourth are registered voters, according to Nancy Au, president of the Asian Pacific Planning Council.

The immediate goal of Asian Pacific Islanders Against Proposition 187 is to defeat it. But the activists’ bigger dream is to use this campaign as a vehicle to organize and educate the disparate Asian communities whose differences between them have been more pronounced than their similarities.

Because a majority of Asians in the United States arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, many are unaware of the history of legally sanctioned discrimination against Asians, Proposition 187 opponents say.

“The first undocumented immigrants were Chinese, not Mexicans,” said Bill Tamayo, an immigration lawyer with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, referring to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that barred Chinese laborers. This and subsequent statutes aimed at the Chinese were the only immigration laws in U.S. history directed at a specific nationality.

Asians have a duty to share this history with Latinos, who have become the latest target of the immigrant bashing, Proposition 187 opponents say.