Principal Calls Meeting to Fight Racial Tension : Alhambra: Baldwin Middle School educator is ecstatic about the high parent turnout. Another community gathering is planned.

It was bad enough to have occasional racial spats erupting between 11- and 12-year-old Asian American and Latino youths at Baldwin Middle School in Alhambra.

But when Asian American teen-agers from the surrounding high schools started coming onto her campus this fall to beat up anyone who looked Latino, Principal Barbara Wong decided she had seen enough.

Alhambra police were called and the teen-agers were threatened with arrests, although none were made. Nonetheless, Wong wondered how long it would be before someone drew a gun. Before one of her students showed up dead on the evening news.

The principal quickly organized a community meeting to discuss racial tensions. She dragooned police officers, probation officers, high school deans, community leaders and a 15-year-old former gang member to speak.

Wong said she would have been pleased to get about 25 parents. Instead, 80 thronged the cafeteria for a 6 p.m. meeting that was still going when the janitor arrived to clean up at 10:30 p.m.

“We came because we’re worried about our kids, they’re good kids and we want to make sure they don’t get into any trouble,” said John Godinez, whose children attend Baldwin.

“This was an effort to prevent a serious incident from happening,” Wong said afterward.

She called the parental turnout “awesome,” noting that most of the families at her working-class school had to make sacrifices to attend the evening meeting.

“We still had people talking at the flagpole at 11 p.m. It blew me away,” Wong said. “Over the years, the demographics in this community have changed and that change is always threatening,” she added. “But if we can get to know each other we can break down those barriers.”

Because of public demand, a second meeting, which will include students, has been scheduled for Jan. 25.

Wong is making a preemptive strike to confront the racial tension that has bubbled below the surface in the west San Gabriel Valley for several years.

Latinos, many of whom have lived in the area for generations, see Asian immigrants moving in, outnumbering them and in many cases, doing better financially. Meanwhile, some Asian Americans have adopted negative stereotypes of Latinos. Children of both ethnic groups bring their parents’ racism to class with them.

“It comes largely from family and the message in our community that nobody’s getting enough of the goodies,” says Elizabeth Sesztak, Baldwin School’s counselor.

Violence has already erupted in the high schools. In 1992, 24 Asian American and Latino students were expelled after two days of racially divided fistfights at Mark Keppel High School. In 1991, a group of Latino students beat up two Chinese American brothers at San Gabriel High.

The Alhambra school district is 49% Asian American and 39% Latino, with the rest divided among various other ethnic groups.

The hints of gang activity at the middle school also have teachers worried, especially because they know that youths are most vulnerable to gang recruitment from the age of 11 to 14. By the time they hit high school, teen-agers have either embraced gang life or have steered clear of it, gang experts say.

John Kao, dean at Alhambra High School, says he’s not surprised that the action is moving to the middle schools.

“Maybe you’re getting harassed, or there’s a group that’s bullying you at the middle school, and the high school kids say, ‘Hey, you need a little protection, we’ll handle those guys for you.’ ”

The danger, Kao says, is that the high school gangbangers turn around and tell the middle school students, “Now you owe us.” And slowly the youngsters get sucked into gang life.

Problems at Baldwin surfaced in September, when some youngsters scrawled the words Asian pride over the bathroom walls. That was soon crossed out and replaced with Mexican power.

School officials estimate that up to 15% of the 400 students in the middle school are involved in gangs.

One of Sesztak’s charges, a young Asian American boy, says he is afraid he will have to join a gang for protection once he is in high school. His older sister did just that because Latino youngsters were always harassing her, the boy told Sesztak.

“It goes down racial lines; the Asian kids are after the Latino kids and vice versa and they get fed up with getting bullied so they have their older friends come over to retaliate,” Sesztak says.

To combat the gang encroachment, Baldwin prohibits students from wearing hats or clothing with sports team insignia. But many students still wear extremely baggy pants to school, a popular clothing style that can also indicate gang affiliation.

So Wong keeps several sets of her husband’s clothing in the office and isn’t shy about ordering youths to slip out of their baggy clothes and into her husband’s gear.

At the meeting, which was translated simultaneously into Mandarin, Spanish and Tagalog, parents ate lasagna, then listened as school officials apprised them of troubles at the campus. Later, they swapped parenting tips. One mother said she took a pair of scissors to her son’s oversize pants. Another said that she goes through her children’s wardrobes, pulling out any clothes that bag or hang too low. A third said she spends time getting to know her children’s friends to make sure they aren’t gangbangers.

Whether they came from Mexico or Korea, India or Taiwan, the parents listened intently and raised their hands to ask questions about gangs and racial strife. Many said they were unaware of the fights on campus.

One Mexican American father urged the school to develop children’s spiritual side, because that was what got him out of gangs. A Taiwanese American father explained how he corrected his children when they said bad things about other ethnic groups. All said parents need to spend more time with their children.

School officials are also taking steps. Last year, Baldwin’s teachers went through multicultural training offered by Los Angeles County. The school asked experts from the Asian Youth Project, a nonprofit group that works with troubled youngsters, to come to Baldwin and conduct conflict resolution classes next month.

And Sesztak works on a weekly basis with seventh- and eighth-graders who come to her during their advisory period to discuss issues such as gang life, home life, drugs and sex.