The county’s Catholic community welcomes new immigrants with a multicultural mass. : A Common Faith

Some came from countries racked by political repression, and others from islands where opportunity ran dry.

But on Sunday, they found common ground in Orange County.

With some dressed in their national costumes and chanting prayers and hymns in languages ranging from Chinese to Czech, about 800 people gathered at Holy Family Cathedral for a multicultural Mass.

The service was organized by local church leaders as part of National Migration Week, when members of the Catholic community come together to make immigrant communities welcome.

“This is what we are all about,” said the Most Rev. Norman F. McFarland, bishop of the Diocese of Orange, gesturing to the various ethnic groups in the congregation. “We’re here to greet these [new immigrants] just like our forefathers were welcomed to this country.”

The local diocese is home to congregations that celebrate Mass in more than a dozen languages. But the various groups rarely get to witness each other’s ceremonies. Once every year, the local Catholic community brings the various groups together to celebrate “the many gifts of the immigrant and refugee communities.”

To start Sunday’s service, delegations from 10 ethnic groups led processions down the aisle.

A group of Mexican Americans strummed guitars, beat tambourines and carried a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Romanians, who have set up a congregation in Yorba Linda, were led by a member who held aloft a picture of the Black Madonna. Samoans, dressed in native matted skirts, entered the church with their leader trumpeting a conch shell.

Other communities participating in the Mass were Chinese, Korean, Polish, Italian, Filipino, Czech, Tongan and Vietnamese.

Some of the new immigrants fled political oppression in their homelands and were resettled in Orange County with the help of Catholic Charities of Orange County, which works with the U.S. State Department to find homes for refugees.

The Rev. Sy Uy Nguyen, now an Orange County church leader, said he was among the beneficiaries of the church’s resettlement program after he and his family fled Vietnam in a crammed boat about 16 years ago.

After spending four months in a refugee camp in Malaysia, the family was sponsored by a small Catholic church in Los Alamitos, Nguyen said.

Recalling his first encounters in his new home, Nguyen said he and his sisters, who lived near the church, would press their noses to their apartment window every weekday afternoon just to catch glimpses of schoolchildren “with blond hair and blue eyes.”

He recalled fondly how when he and his family took the bus to English classes at Cypress College, his father would know their bus stop by the graffiti on a pole. The day after the city painted over his father’s landmark, they ended up in Santa Ana, Nguyen recalled.

But Nguyen said the immigrant experience was not always sweet. He told the congregation about an incident five years ago when his sister came home crying. A motorist, he said, had rolled down his window and yelled at her: “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”

Nguyen said the anti-immigrant sentiments expressed in Proposition 187 showed that some people needed to “reform” their lives.

The fact that this multicultural celebration was taking place in Orange County, home to the leaders of Proposition 187 (which would deny some medical services and education to immigrants), was not lost on some.

Msgr. Jaime Soto, vicar of the Latino community, said, “In the face of so much hostility and anxiety about the immigrant, this [Mass] is a hopeful sign that says we are stronger when we come together to build a community for everyone.”

After the Mass, the various groups gathered in the cathedral’s annex to feast on an assortment of food from around the world and to watch members of the group perform native songs and dances.

Susana Contreras, a Mexican immigrant who now lives in Fullerton, said she was pleased to spend the day with Catholics from so many different cultures.

Hala Makaohi, 48, of Tonga, agreed.

Eight years ago, Makaohi came to the United States on a vacation, and stayed.

On Sunday, as he watched a performance by the Samoan delegation, a satisfied smile swept over his face.

“I’m with my family,” he said.