Dialogue Day Sews Tolerance Into Fabric of O.C. Diversity

Farah Magenheim shared the story of her burgeoning relationship with an African American man, and the interracial pitfalls the two must overcome. Sam Lim spoke of his family’s passage from Cambodia, and his parents’ dismay when his brother married a Mexican woman.

And in yet another gathering Thursday, Korean business leaders sat down with their counterparts from so-called “old mainstream” Garden Grove, discussing ways of attracting customers from one another’s communities, and alleviating tensions that have been building for years as the county has experienced an influx of Asian residents.

“When I go into a Korean grocery store, I have no idea what this stuff is, because of the packaging and the labeling,” Larry Cooper, executive director of the Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce, told a luncheon group at the Korean Chamber of Commerce.

“I think communication is very important. There’s not a lot of purchasing going on either way because you just don’t know what you’re looking at.”

The discussion groups, which included residents, business people, police officers and others from just about every ethnic background in Orange County, gathered throughout the day Thursday as part of the first citywide “Day of Dialogue.”

Orange County Together, a group formed in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots to encourage inter-ethnic dialogue, organized the talks with City Council support. The purpose: to strengthen the community by bringing people together who might otherwise face one another only rarely, and often with wary misunderstanding.

The group hopes to replicate the day of talks in other parts of the county, Executive Director Pat Callahan said.

The 20 different discussions that drew 200 people included talks on the cultural aspects of care for the elderly and a discussion by the Garden Grove Police Department Hispanic Advisory Committee of the videotaped beating of two immigrants in Los Angeles County.

They tapped frankly into the stereotypes that keep the community divided, but also shared personal stories that reminded participants of their similarities.

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One woman, who asked that her name not be used, shared the tale of her grandmother, who she said fought alongside Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution and thrilled her grandchildren for years by showing off her wooden leg.

“My grandmother was a gun-toting mama,” she told the group of residents and co-workers who gathered for the dialogue. “She was very progressive. She taught us that you never took a second seat to anyone.”

An African American woman told of growing up in rural North Carolina, helping total strangers around the table understand her love for her grandmother and the discrimination she felt when she moved to New York City as a girl.

“I didn’t know people didn’t like each other until I left the South and went to New York City, where everyone was supposed to like everyone, and no one liked anyone,” she said.

The idea for a day of discussions grew out of the organization’s living-room dialogues--talks by small groups of residents over the past few years, Callahan said. Orange County Together wanted to involve community organizations and city officials, who could continue to meet and talk after the day’s events were long over.

The City Council, which co-sponsored the event at the urging of Councilman Ho Chung, encouraged people to attend, and the Police Department sent out mailers. But some, such as Sam Lim, simply stumbled across the talks and sat in.

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“I just came to the restroom and saw the sign,” he told the roomful of participants. “I saw ‘Dialogue Day.’ It’s important that we talk to each other, whether we’re black, white, yellow or red.”

The discussion between the two chambers of commerce took on a slightly different tone. Rather than talk of family backgrounds, the group focused on marketing and customer service. Talks also dipped into some of the resentment that has come with rapid change in the city.

“I think what we need to focus on is, ‘Why don’t [Koreans] patronize us and why don’t we patronize them?’ ” asked John Perrot Jr., who has had a carpet and linoleum shop in Garden Grove since 1965. “We’re here for a reason and that’s because there’s a problem in the community.”

Euiwon Chough, chairman of the Korean Chamber of Commerce’s outreach committee, said the chamber is pushing for bilingual signs at Korean businesses and has tried to better promote the old-time businesses in Garden Grove.

About 1,000 of Garden Grove’s 7,000 businesses are Korean-owned, said Tom Kim, founder of the Korean Chamber of Commerce.

By the end of Thursday’s dialogue, leaders from both organizations planned to arrange meetings of the two chambers at least every two months, Korean Chamber President Raymond Choi said.

“It’s a very unique effort and it’s helpful for us to get to understand each other,” Choi said of the dialogues. “We need more communication.”