Some Had Made Their Marks, and Many Others Were Just Beginning
Published: April 18, 2007
Remembering some of the students and faculty members killed in the Virginia Tech shootings, in these biographical sketches.
Henry Lee, 20
A freshman majoring in computer engineering, he was in elementary school and unable to speak English when his family emigrated from China. When he became an American citizen in 1999, he changed his name from Henh Ly. That same year he graduated from William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Va., and was salutatorian of his class with a 4.47 grade point average. He worked part time at Sears in high school and was honored for his scholastic achievements by the local Burger King, which gave his class vouchers for free Whoppers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18portraits.html?pagewanted=2
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Ethnic changes in store for Chino Hills
Ethnic changes in store for Chino Hills
Some residents protest, in vain, an Asian market in the upscale community. Others say it will serve their needs.
By Sara Lin, Times Staff Writer
April 12, 2007
An hour before Sunday services at a Lutheran church in Chino Hills, the Rev. Andy Wu joined his congregants in front of plates piled high with boiled Napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, stir fried tofu and rice.
Since Wu became an associate pastor in 2002, attendance at lunch and his worship services in Mandarin Chinese have doubled. So has Chino Hills' Asian population, which now makes up about 40% of city residents.
"Five years ago, if I walked into a Vons market and saw an Asian face, I would get very excited," Wu said. "Now, every day we see Asian faces."
But the demographic shift has proved unsettling for some in this upscale San Bernardino County town, and that tension surfaced when a major Asian grocery chain, 99 Ranch Market, announced plans for a Chino Hills store.
The Chino Hills City Council heard an outcry from a small group of residents, including one who wrote that he didn't want to see "little Chinatowns all over the Hills" filled with Asian signs he can't read.
The skirmish mirrors clashes in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s when Asian immigrants moved into the traditionally white and Latino suburbs. When a wave of Asian businesses followed, city officials in Monterey Park tried unsuccessfully to pass English-only ordinances, arguing that Chinese-language business signs would confuse firefighters and emergency workers.
Larry Blugrind of Chino Hills told the City Council in a letter that the store would "result in a run-down center that is the equivalent of a Chinese Pic 'N' Save less than a mile from the kind of high-quality shops our city has been trying to attract to this area."
Reached by telephone, Blugrind explained that he enjoyed having a diverse community — his daughter-in-law is Japanese.
"My worry is that 99 Ranch could be a steppingstone for it to become all Asian," he said. "I don't want another Hacienda Heights."
In Chino Hills, the City Council has no say in whether Tawa Supermarkets Inc. can open a 99 Ranch Market. The store is moving into a space formerly occupied by a Ralphs supermarket. It's a simple case of one grocery store taking over for another, said Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry.
"It's an approved use, and we as a city have no purview over this. That's the bottom line," Norton-Perry said.
But that hasn't stopped angry residents from sounding off to the City Council.
The market's owners downplayed the controversy.
"We don't want to focus on that part," said Jennifer Tsao, a spokeswoman for Tawa, which operates 22 stores throughout California. Inside the store, Tsao said customers could expect clean aisles, signs in English and Chinese, as well as bilingual employees.
The 99 Ranch Market in Chino Hills may have struck a chord with residents because it "makes the Asian American community very visible and displaces businesses that people were comfortable with, in this case a Ralphs," said Linda Vo, an Asian American studies professor at UC Irvine.
From 2000 to 2005, the city of 81,000 saw its Asian population jump from 22% to 39%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent survey. Of those, 10,316 were Filipino and 7,752 were Chinese. Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese constitute most of the remaining Asian Americans.
The Asian influx has already had an effect on some public services: The Chino Hills library stocks books written in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
Similarly, in Orange County, nearly one-third of Irvine residents are Asian Americans. But Irvine's transition was a slower one, with many immigrants moving into newly built neighborhoods, Vo said. There was some mild resentment from the community about the changing demographics but nothing overt, she said.
At the Mediterranean-style plaza in Chino Hills where workers are readying the 99 Ranch Market for a summer opening, a handful of the plaza's 20 shops already seem to reflect the city's changing face.
There's a karate studio, a Chinese buffet and Thai restaurants.
Every Tuesday, restaurant owner Chad Chantaracharat invites Thai monks wearing saffron robes to lunch at his Thai Original BBQ Restaurant. The monks live at a Buddhist temple a few miles away.
Chantaracharat said he had mixed feelings about the new market. The store could attract more business to his restaurant, but he wasn't sure if the market planned to have a small cafe inside serving cheaper meals.
He sympathized with some residents' concerns, saying he has noticed that 99 Ranch Markets in some areas are not that well kept, but said that once people saw the spread of Asian vegetables and fresh seafood — often still swimming in tanks until a customer orders it killed — they'd like the market.
"I think people are going to dig it," he said. "It's something new, and everyone here likes to be trendy."
At Loving Savior of the Hills Lutheran Church, Chinese congregants mostly welcomed the market, saying its unconventional wares would be a boon to the community. The market could also become a much-needed hub for older Asians to meet friends, chat and sip tea.
"I think the market is absolutely a good thing. We've been waiting a long time for this," said Cindy Fu, 40, who recently moved from Chino Hills to Chino. "Every culture has businesses; some are super clean, and some are not. But you can't use just one to judge an entire culture. I think this could be a good opportunity for us to earn a good reputation."
Still, others were afraid that the market could give well-heeled residents of this semirural community at the westernmost edge of San Bernardino County the wrong impression about Asians.
"We've tried very hard to build up ourselves and build up our image to Caucasian people here. I hope 99 Ranch will hold up to that high standard," said Wu.
The new grocery store wasn't the first controversy to arise from the changing faces in Chino Hills neighborhoods.
Three years ago, Hindu leaders proposed a grand temple on former farmland, in part to serve the 500 Indian families there.
But the plans drew protests from some residents who contended the project would turn Chino Hills into a "Third World city" and a haven for terrorists.
After a heated public hearing, the temple's supporters won approval to build, but it ultimately did not win permission to construct the temple's spires that exceeded the city's 43-foot height limit.
City leaders say the community isn't in danger of losing its rural feel: The Sheriff's Department station is surrounded by white post fencing and horse pastures. Forty percent of Chino Hills' 46 square miles is dedicated to open space, Norton-Perry said.
The 99 Ranch Market, as any other grocer, will undergo regular inspections by the county Health Department.
As for the sign, "We can tell them we prefer signs to be in English only, but we can't require it," Norton-Perry said.
Still, some say the spat is much ado about nothing.
"Last I remember, the words '99 Ranch' were in English," said Don Nakanishi, director of UCLA's Asian American Studies Center. "You have El Pollo Loco," he said, referring to the popular Mexican restaurant chain. "Nobody's telling them to translate that."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinohills12apr12,0,7537913.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Some residents protest, in vain, an Asian market in the upscale community. Others say it will serve their needs.
By Sara Lin, Times Staff Writer
April 12, 2007
An hour before Sunday services at a Lutheran church in Chino Hills, the Rev. Andy Wu joined his congregants in front of plates piled high with boiled Napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, stir fried tofu and rice.
Since Wu became an associate pastor in 2002, attendance at lunch and his worship services in Mandarin Chinese have doubled. So has Chino Hills' Asian population, which now makes up about 40% of city residents.
"Five years ago, if I walked into a Vons market and saw an Asian face, I would get very excited," Wu said. "Now, every day we see Asian faces."
But the demographic shift has proved unsettling for some in this upscale San Bernardino County town, and that tension surfaced when a major Asian grocery chain, 99 Ranch Market, announced plans for a Chino Hills store.
The Chino Hills City Council heard an outcry from a small group of residents, including one who wrote that he didn't want to see "little Chinatowns all over the Hills" filled with Asian signs he can't read.
The skirmish mirrors clashes in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s when Asian immigrants moved into the traditionally white and Latino suburbs. When a wave of Asian businesses followed, city officials in Monterey Park tried unsuccessfully to pass English-only ordinances, arguing that Chinese-language business signs would confuse firefighters and emergency workers.
Larry Blugrind of Chino Hills told the City Council in a letter that the store would "result in a run-down center that is the equivalent of a Chinese Pic 'N' Save less than a mile from the kind of high-quality shops our city has been trying to attract to this area."
Reached by telephone, Blugrind explained that he enjoyed having a diverse community — his daughter-in-law is Japanese.
"My worry is that 99 Ranch could be a steppingstone for it to become all Asian," he said. "I don't want another Hacienda Heights."
In Chino Hills, the City Council has no say in whether Tawa Supermarkets Inc. can open a 99 Ranch Market. The store is moving into a space formerly occupied by a Ralphs supermarket. It's a simple case of one grocery store taking over for another, said Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry.
"It's an approved use, and we as a city have no purview over this. That's the bottom line," Norton-Perry said.
But that hasn't stopped angry residents from sounding off to the City Council.
The market's owners downplayed the controversy.
"We don't want to focus on that part," said Jennifer Tsao, a spokeswoman for Tawa, which operates 22 stores throughout California. Inside the store, Tsao said customers could expect clean aisles, signs in English and Chinese, as well as bilingual employees.
The 99 Ranch Market in Chino Hills may have struck a chord with residents because it "makes the Asian American community very visible and displaces businesses that people were comfortable with, in this case a Ralphs," said Linda Vo, an Asian American studies professor at UC Irvine.
From 2000 to 2005, the city of 81,000 saw its Asian population jump from 22% to 39%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent survey. Of those, 10,316 were Filipino and 7,752 were Chinese. Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese constitute most of the remaining Asian Americans.
The Asian influx has already had an effect on some public services: The Chino Hills library stocks books written in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
Similarly, in Orange County, nearly one-third of Irvine residents are Asian Americans. But Irvine's transition was a slower one, with many immigrants moving into newly built neighborhoods, Vo said. There was some mild resentment from the community about the changing demographics but nothing overt, she said.
At the Mediterranean-style plaza in Chino Hills where workers are readying the 99 Ranch Market for a summer opening, a handful of the plaza's 20 shops already seem to reflect the city's changing face.
There's a karate studio, a Chinese buffet and Thai restaurants.
Every Tuesday, restaurant owner Chad Chantaracharat invites Thai monks wearing saffron robes to lunch at his Thai Original BBQ Restaurant. The monks live at a Buddhist temple a few miles away.
Chantaracharat said he had mixed feelings about the new market. The store could attract more business to his restaurant, but he wasn't sure if the market planned to have a small cafe inside serving cheaper meals.
He sympathized with some residents' concerns, saying he has noticed that 99 Ranch Markets in some areas are not that well kept, but said that once people saw the spread of Asian vegetables and fresh seafood — often still swimming in tanks until a customer orders it killed — they'd like the market.
"I think people are going to dig it," he said. "It's something new, and everyone here likes to be trendy."
At Loving Savior of the Hills Lutheran Church, Chinese congregants mostly welcomed the market, saying its unconventional wares would be a boon to the community. The market could also become a much-needed hub for older Asians to meet friends, chat and sip tea.
"I think the market is absolutely a good thing. We've been waiting a long time for this," said Cindy Fu, 40, who recently moved from Chino Hills to Chino. "Every culture has businesses; some are super clean, and some are not. But you can't use just one to judge an entire culture. I think this could be a good opportunity for us to earn a good reputation."
Still, others were afraid that the market could give well-heeled residents of this semirural community at the westernmost edge of San Bernardino County the wrong impression about Asians.
"We've tried very hard to build up ourselves and build up our image to Caucasian people here. I hope 99 Ranch will hold up to that high standard," said Wu.
The new grocery store wasn't the first controversy to arise from the changing faces in Chino Hills neighborhoods.
Three years ago, Hindu leaders proposed a grand temple on former farmland, in part to serve the 500 Indian families there.
But the plans drew protests from some residents who contended the project would turn Chino Hills into a "Third World city" and a haven for terrorists.
After a heated public hearing, the temple's supporters won approval to build, but it ultimately did not win permission to construct the temple's spires that exceeded the city's 43-foot height limit.
City leaders say the community isn't in danger of losing its rural feel: The Sheriff's Department station is surrounded by white post fencing and horse pastures. Forty percent of Chino Hills' 46 square miles is dedicated to open space, Norton-Perry said.
The 99 Ranch Market, as any other grocer, will undergo regular inspections by the county Health Department.
As for the sign, "We can tell them we prefer signs to be in English only, but we can't require it," Norton-Perry said.
Still, some say the spat is much ado about nothing.
"Last I remember, the words '99 Ranch' were in English," said Don Nakanishi, director of UCLA's Asian American Studies Center. "You have El Pollo Loco," he said, referring to the popular Mexican restaurant chain. "Nobody's telling them to translate that."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinohills12apr12,0,7537913.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Monday, April 2, 2007
Diversity program mostly benefits Asians
Diversity program mostly benefits Asians
Beverly Hills High looks to L.A. Unified to increase minority enrollment but can't ask applicants about race or ethnicity.
By Joel Rubin, Times Staff Writer
April 2, 2007
In 1969, when nearly every student at Beverly Hills High School was white, school officials went looking for some help diversifying the campus. They found it in the polyglot Los Angeles school system that surrounds the tony, iconic city.
Under a system of "diversity permits," the high school began enrolling scores of minority students from Los Angeles each year. For decades, the permit program aimed to bring in a deliberate mix of black, Latino and Asian students from outside the city limits.
Today, however, the vast majority of the students enrolled with diversity permits at Beverly Hills High are high-performing Asian students.
The dramatic shift stems from California's stringent anti-affirmative action law, approved by voters in 1996. Concerned with running afoul of the sweeping ban, Beverly Hills school officials have followed what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the diversity permits. Students who apply are not allowed to identify their race or ethnicity.
The program has become as competitive as the Ivy League, with about 8% of the students who applied last year being accepted. Critics say the program has shifted by default from a program aimed at increasing racial and ethnic diversity to one that simply brings smart, well-rounded students into the district.
"We were looking to expand diversity but didn't have any racial information," said Dan Stepenosky, the former principal at Beverly Hills High. "We were operating blind, to be honest."
Not only does the high number of Asian students raise questions about the purpose of the program, but it also illustrates the inability of the Los Angeles Unified School District to keep its high-performing students in its schools.
The permit program offers another option, along with private schools or even moving outside the district, for parents dissatisfied with the academics and concerned about safety on L.A. Unified campuses.
"Why wouldn't I take advantage of this opportunity?" said Teresa Roth, whose two sons are half Asian and attend Beverly Hills High on diversity permits. "In LAUSD, they don't care if your kid is gifted, if he plays sports, if he is well-rounded. They couldn't have cared less. I felt quite let down."
Roth, who lives in Westwood, said she started looking for a way out of the L.A. school system after applying unsuccessfully to enroll her older son, David, in one of the district's selective magnet high schools. Sending her sons to a large, traditional Los Angeles Unified high school, she said, was not an option she was willing to consider.
The Beverly Hills High diversity permits, Roth said, offered a free, quality education on a safe campus. Several Asian students who attend Beverly Hills High on the permits gave similar reasons.
In California, students cannot enroll in schools outside their districts without special permits.
Of the 159 Los Angeles Unified students who attend Beverly Hills High on diversity permits, 108 — more than two out of three — are Asian, according to L.A. Unified statistics. Only 16 of the students are Latino and 19 are black.
Those numbers do nothing to balance diversity at Beverly Hills High, where — excluding those with permits — minority students are also mostly Asian.
About 17% of the 2,362 students at the school are of Asian extraction, about 4% are Latino and about 5% are African American. Nearly 70% of the students are white, a category that includes 450 students of Persian descent.
The disproportionate number of Asians who receive the permits also stands in stark contrast to the racial breakdown of the 12 L.A. Unified middle schools that participate in the permit program. More than half of the students at those schools are Latino, one-quarter are African American and fewer than 8% are Asian.
Beverly Hills Unified School District Supt. Kari McVeigh acknowledged that the numbers are skewed, but she defended the permits. The Los Angeles students, she said, bring an element of diversity to the sheltered, upscale world of Beverly Hills regardless of their race.
"This is very much a small town surrounded by a large city, and kids here experience life very much through the lens of a small town," she said. "Any time you can … have different kids who come together from different experiences, it's a good idea. The permit program allows us to do that."
She also conceded that money is one of the motivating factors for keeping the program alive.
Because the amount of public funds a school receives is based on the number of students enrolled, Beverly Hills High uses the diversity permits — and other types of permits — to fill empty seats and maximize funding. This year, the district will receive nearly $1 million for enrolling the diversity-permit students.
"Taking in nonresident students is always an issue for some people," McVeigh said. "But it's a crucial source of income for us. It helps us provide the types of programs we are known for."
The influx of Asian students apparently began in 2000, when the permit program came under scrutiny. The program's admissions policy, district lawyers advised the Beverly Hills school board, violated the state law that bars public institutions from considering race in admissions.
Board members moved to do away with the program altogether but backed down in the face of well-organized protests by parents. To avoid possible lawsuits, however, the board decided that a student's race or ethnicity could no longer be considered when awarding permits. Instead, students were chosen based on an application, which included grades, test scores, essays and extracurricular activities.
Neither school district could provide ethnic or racial breakdowns of the students who attended Beverly Hills High before the changes in the program went into effect. But parents, former students and permit rosters indicate that it was a more diverse program then.
Most of the students who receive the permits today are Asians enrolled in gifted programs at two Los Angeles middle schools, John Burroughs and Palms, L.A. Unified figures show.
"Of course it's Asian students" who receive most of the permits, said Robin Day, assistant principal at Palms. "They are the students who are most driven and have the highest grades.
"Their parents are very on top of" the application process too, Day said. "It's a chance at Beverly Hills, and that's attractive to many people."
Indeed, Beverly Hills High — with its smaller class sizes, better resources, impressive test scores and higher number of Advance Placement and arts courses — outshines most traditional Los Angeles Unified high schools.
Had they remained in L.A. Unified, for example, many of the permit students would have been slated to attend Los Angeles High School — a struggling, 4,300-student campus that is nearly 79% Latino and 8% Asian.
The school has been on a federal government watch list for poor student performance for several years, and more than two-thirds of students last year tested "below basic" or "far below basic" on the state's standardized English and math exams.
"Because all the discussion is on the kids who are failing, there is no equal effort to search for and serve the most talented in the district and provide them with a rigorous education," said Los Angeles school board member David Tokofsky.
Board President Marlene Canter, who largely represents schools on the Westside, agreed. She said L.A. Unified needs to be more responsive to parents who have the option to leave the district. The district should double its number of selective, specialty magnet schools and allow parents a greater say in reforms to their middle and high schools, she said.
"Our public education system on the Westside is going to die if we don't nurture it," she said. "Parents want to know that they will have a program that will be exciting for their kids…. Right now, there is the perception that the grass is greener elsewhere."
Canter added that she was very concerned when she learned about the diversity permit program and questioned whether the district should continue to cooperate with Beverly Hills High.
Proponents of the permits say that scrapping the program would be a loss but that changes are needed.
Melinda Weathersby was in the first group of students in 1969 who received the permits. In 2000, with two of her children enrolled with permits, she led the fight to save the program when the school board tried to cut it.
Now, Weathersby, who is black, believes Beverly Hills High officials need to recruit Latino and black students more aggressively. She also wants the school district to select a few students from each of the participating Los Angeles middle schools in an effort to enroll a more diverse group.
"You have 12 schools, and you can't find one or two students at each who qualify?" she said. "It is called equity."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-permit2apr02,1,1992980,full.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=3&cset=true
Beverly Hills High looks to L.A. Unified to increase minority enrollment but can't ask applicants about race or ethnicity.
By Joel Rubin, Times Staff Writer
April 2, 2007
In 1969, when nearly every student at Beverly Hills High School was white, school officials went looking for some help diversifying the campus. They found it in the polyglot Los Angeles school system that surrounds the tony, iconic city.
Under a system of "diversity permits," the high school began enrolling scores of minority students from Los Angeles each year. For decades, the permit program aimed to bring in a deliberate mix of black, Latino and Asian students from outside the city limits.
Today, however, the vast majority of the students enrolled with diversity permits at Beverly Hills High are high-performing Asian students.
The dramatic shift stems from California's stringent anti-affirmative action law, approved by voters in 1996. Concerned with running afoul of the sweeping ban, Beverly Hills school officials have followed what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the diversity permits. Students who apply are not allowed to identify their race or ethnicity.
The program has become as competitive as the Ivy League, with about 8% of the students who applied last year being accepted. Critics say the program has shifted by default from a program aimed at increasing racial and ethnic diversity to one that simply brings smart, well-rounded students into the district.
"We were looking to expand diversity but didn't have any racial information," said Dan Stepenosky, the former principal at Beverly Hills High. "We were operating blind, to be honest."
Not only does the high number of Asian students raise questions about the purpose of the program, but it also illustrates the inability of the Los Angeles Unified School District to keep its high-performing students in its schools.
The permit program offers another option, along with private schools or even moving outside the district, for parents dissatisfied with the academics and concerned about safety on L.A. Unified campuses.
"Why wouldn't I take advantage of this opportunity?" said Teresa Roth, whose two sons are half Asian and attend Beverly Hills High on diversity permits. "In LAUSD, they don't care if your kid is gifted, if he plays sports, if he is well-rounded. They couldn't have cared less. I felt quite let down."
Roth, who lives in Westwood, said she started looking for a way out of the L.A. school system after applying unsuccessfully to enroll her older son, David, in one of the district's selective magnet high schools. Sending her sons to a large, traditional Los Angeles Unified high school, she said, was not an option she was willing to consider.
The Beverly Hills High diversity permits, Roth said, offered a free, quality education on a safe campus. Several Asian students who attend Beverly Hills High on the permits gave similar reasons.
In California, students cannot enroll in schools outside their districts without special permits.
Of the 159 Los Angeles Unified students who attend Beverly Hills High on diversity permits, 108 — more than two out of three — are Asian, according to L.A. Unified statistics. Only 16 of the students are Latino and 19 are black.
Those numbers do nothing to balance diversity at Beverly Hills High, where — excluding those with permits — minority students are also mostly Asian.
About 17% of the 2,362 students at the school are of Asian extraction, about 4% are Latino and about 5% are African American. Nearly 70% of the students are white, a category that includes 450 students of Persian descent.
The disproportionate number of Asians who receive the permits also stands in stark contrast to the racial breakdown of the 12 L.A. Unified middle schools that participate in the permit program. More than half of the students at those schools are Latino, one-quarter are African American and fewer than 8% are Asian.
Beverly Hills Unified School District Supt. Kari McVeigh acknowledged that the numbers are skewed, but she defended the permits. The Los Angeles students, she said, bring an element of diversity to the sheltered, upscale world of Beverly Hills regardless of their race.
"This is very much a small town surrounded by a large city, and kids here experience life very much through the lens of a small town," she said. "Any time you can … have different kids who come together from different experiences, it's a good idea. The permit program allows us to do that."
She also conceded that money is one of the motivating factors for keeping the program alive.
Because the amount of public funds a school receives is based on the number of students enrolled, Beverly Hills High uses the diversity permits — and other types of permits — to fill empty seats and maximize funding. This year, the district will receive nearly $1 million for enrolling the diversity-permit students.
"Taking in nonresident students is always an issue for some people," McVeigh said. "But it's a crucial source of income for us. It helps us provide the types of programs we are known for."
The influx of Asian students apparently began in 2000, when the permit program came under scrutiny. The program's admissions policy, district lawyers advised the Beverly Hills school board, violated the state law that bars public institutions from considering race in admissions.
Board members moved to do away with the program altogether but backed down in the face of well-organized protests by parents. To avoid possible lawsuits, however, the board decided that a student's race or ethnicity could no longer be considered when awarding permits. Instead, students were chosen based on an application, which included grades, test scores, essays and extracurricular activities.
Neither school district could provide ethnic or racial breakdowns of the students who attended Beverly Hills High before the changes in the program went into effect. But parents, former students and permit rosters indicate that it was a more diverse program then.
Most of the students who receive the permits today are Asians enrolled in gifted programs at two Los Angeles middle schools, John Burroughs and Palms, L.A. Unified figures show.
"Of course it's Asian students" who receive most of the permits, said Robin Day, assistant principal at Palms. "They are the students who are most driven and have the highest grades.
"Their parents are very on top of" the application process too, Day said. "It's a chance at Beverly Hills, and that's attractive to many people."
Indeed, Beverly Hills High — with its smaller class sizes, better resources, impressive test scores and higher number of Advance Placement and arts courses — outshines most traditional Los Angeles Unified high schools.
Had they remained in L.A. Unified, for example, many of the permit students would have been slated to attend Los Angeles High School — a struggling, 4,300-student campus that is nearly 79% Latino and 8% Asian.
The school has been on a federal government watch list for poor student performance for several years, and more than two-thirds of students last year tested "below basic" or "far below basic" on the state's standardized English and math exams.
"Because all the discussion is on the kids who are failing, there is no equal effort to search for and serve the most talented in the district and provide them with a rigorous education," said Los Angeles school board member David Tokofsky.
Board President Marlene Canter, who largely represents schools on the Westside, agreed. She said L.A. Unified needs to be more responsive to parents who have the option to leave the district. The district should double its number of selective, specialty magnet schools and allow parents a greater say in reforms to their middle and high schools, she said.
"Our public education system on the Westside is going to die if we don't nurture it," she said. "Parents want to know that they will have a program that will be exciting for their kids…. Right now, there is the perception that the grass is greener elsewhere."
Canter added that she was very concerned when she learned about the diversity permit program and questioned whether the district should continue to cooperate with Beverly Hills High.
Proponents of the permits say that scrapping the program would be a loss but that changes are needed.
Melinda Weathersby was in the first group of students in 1969 who received the permits. In 2000, with two of her children enrolled with permits, she led the fight to save the program when the school board tried to cut it.
Now, Weathersby, who is black, believes Beverly Hills High officials need to recruit Latino and black students more aggressively. She also wants the school district to select a few students from each of the participating Los Angeles middle schools in an effort to enroll a more diverse group.
"You have 12 schools, and you can't find one or two students at each who qualify?" she said. "It is called equity."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-permit2apr02,1,1992980,full.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=3&cset=true
Thursday, March 15, 2007
More U.S. schools offering Chinese language programs
More U.S. schools offering Chinese language programs
By Adam Gorlick, The Associated Press
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Article Launched:03/14/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT
EASTHAMPTON, Mass. - In Alaska, students are calling their teacher "lao shi." In Illinois, they're learning that one plus one equals "er." And in western Massachusetts, kindergarten students who can sing their ABCs will soon start honing Mandarin accents.
As China's economic power grows, Chinese is becoming the new language of the future.
At least 27 states offer Chinese language classes in either elementary, middle or high schools. And at least 12 public and private schools across the country teach most subjects in Mandarin Chinese, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington.
"It's about jobs and a world economy," said Richard Alcorn, who with his wife won state approval last month for the first Chinese immersion charter school in Massachusetts.
"There are unbelievable opportunities to do business in China, so there's a need for Americans to learn the language so we're not left out."
Alcorn runs a business importing English versions of Chinese books. He is still looking for a location for the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion School, which is scheduled to open in the fall with a 75 percent of the curriculum to be taught in Chinese.
Some of the push for Chinese instruction is coming from families who want their children to learn the language of their heritage.
"But the major force behind it is coming from parents who don't speak Chinese and want their children to be exposed to it," said Zhining Chin, a coordinator at the Eisenhower Elementary School, a public Chinese immersion school set to open in September in Hopkins, Minn. "They recognize the importance of China as a world power."
Shuhan Wang, executive director of Chinese language initiatives for the New York-based Asia Society, said the surge in Chinese language classes started around 2003.
"Anyone who reads the newspaper realizes that you can't ignore Asia anymore," she said. "American education has always been Euro-centric, and now we're realizing how inadequate our perspective on Asia has been."
In the decade following the Cold War, Americans largely maintained their suspicions about the world's most populous country.
The federal government distributed about $9 million last year to schools to support efforts to teach Chinese and other "critical languages" such as Arabic, Russian, Hindi and Farsi.
President Bush also announced a separate national security initiative to offer instruction in those languages, but Congress has yet to fund the $114 million program.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/search/ci_5430432
By Adam Gorlick, The Associated Press
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Article Launched:03/14/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT
EASTHAMPTON, Mass. - In Alaska, students are calling their teacher "lao shi." In Illinois, they're learning that one plus one equals "er." And in western Massachusetts, kindergarten students who can sing their ABCs will soon start honing Mandarin accents.
As China's economic power grows, Chinese is becoming the new language of the future.
At least 27 states offer Chinese language classes in either elementary, middle or high schools. And at least 12 public and private schools across the country teach most subjects in Mandarin Chinese, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington.
"It's about jobs and a world economy," said Richard Alcorn, who with his wife won state approval last month for the first Chinese immersion charter school in Massachusetts.
"There are unbelievable opportunities to do business in China, so there's a need for Americans to learn the language so we're not left out."
Alcorn runs a business importing English versions of Chinese books. He is still looking for a location for the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion School, which is scheduled to open in the fall with a 75 percent of the curriculum to be taught in Chinese.
Some of the push for Chinese instruction is coming from families who want their children to learn the language of their heritage.
"But the major force behind it is coming from parents who don't speak Chinese and want their children to be exposed to it," said Zhining Chin, a coordinator at the Eisenhower Elementary School, a public Chinese immersion school set to open in September in Hopkins, Minn. "They recognize the importance of China as a world power."
Shuhan Wang, executive director of Chinese language initiatives for the New York-based Asia Society, said the surge in Chinese language classes started around 2003.
"Anyone who reads the newspaper realizes that you can't ignore Asia anymore," she said. "American education has always been Euro-centric, and now we're realizing how inadequate our perspective on Asia has been."
In the decade following the Cold War, Americans largely maintained their suspicions about the world's most populous country.
The federal government distributed about $9 million last year to schools to support efforts to teach Chinese and other "critical languages" such as Arabic, Russian, Hindi and Farsi.
President Bush also announced a separate national security initiative to offer instruction in those languages, but Congress has yet to fund the $114 million program.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/search/ci_5430432
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
China's global go-getters
China's global go-getters
By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2007
Erenhot, China — ARMORED dinosaurs once ruled this Gobi Desert area near the Mongolian border. Millions of years later, it became the domain of Genghis Khan and his clan. Now the land belongs to Jin Xiancong and the people from Wenzhou.
Jin ships 10,000 VCRs each month into neighboring Mongolia, runs his own logistics firm and builds office properties. He will soon be mining iron and other minerals in the region, where winter temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero. Summers are so hot and dry that people get nosebleeds.
Jin was just 23 when he arrived in 1993 with little more than two large sacks stuffed with hairpins and trinkets to peddle to Chinese, Mongolian and Russian tourists. "My parents told us, 'Go out and explore,' " says the brush-cut Jin, whose four brothers and sisters are scattered in Italy making and selling apparel. "The farther you can reach, the stronger you get."
Like modern-day Marco Polos, the people of Wenzhou are extending the frontiers of China's booming economy. Hundreds of entrepreneurs from the southeastern Chinese city 1,200 miles away have flocked here, opening retail stores and developing hotels and apartments, even a $1-million nightclub featuring topless Mongolian dancers. (The club is named SOS, presumably after the distress signal.)
Undaunted by treacherous terrain, harsh climate and hostile governments, Wenzhou natives are spreading Chinese commerce not only here but across the globe. They are mining molybdenum in North Korea, acquiring cow leather from African tribes, selling shoes in Iraq and exporting Arctic shrimp and turbot from Iceland.
Even after two decades in Reykjavik, Iceland, seafood trader Xiang Youyi, 45, still finds it tough to endure two months of near-total darkness every year. "This place isn't suitable for living," he says, only to add: "I have opportunities here."
Almost 2 million people from Wenzhou, a metropolitan area of 7.5 million about 250 miles south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, have left their homes over the years in search of riches. The migration goes back at least a century, but accelerated with Communist China's opening up to the West nearly 30 years ago.
"Wherever there is business opportunity, there are Wenzhou people," says Zhong Pengrong, a prominent Chinese economist in Beijing. He calls them a people of "four thousand spirits" — they walk through a thousand rivers and mountains, speak a thousand words to promote their goods, dare to solve problems in a thousand ways and endure a thousand hardships.
"Unlike many other businesspeople in China who became rich overnight," Zhong says, "almost all the Wenzhou people built up their wealth from nothing and amassed their fortune through years of hardship."
NOW, nearly half a million of them are staking their claims in 70 foreign countries, including 100,000 in the United States, mostly New York, where they've opened dozens of supermarkets and dollar stores. They like New York City because they don't need a car to get around, says Lin Ter-Hsien, who started out with a tiny gift shop in Brooklyn, then imported gloves from South Korea and hats from India and now invests in Los Angeles real estate. Lin splits his time between Alhambra, New Jersey and Wenzhou.
In Tanzania, Hu Qiaoming keeps a loaded pistol near his bedside because robbery is rampant. Even with a stable of dogs, an electric fence around his compound and alarms that will bring police within minutes, the 52-year-old entrepreneur doesn't take chances. A couple of years ago, he says, robbers killed two guards protecting the house next door.
Since arriving in the East African nation in 1993, Hu and his wife have opened shoe plants there and in Kenya, Congo, Zambia and Malawi. He keeps shotguns in his factories too, although they can't protect him from the sub-Saharan heat and long rains, political turmoil and disease.
Hu's employees have been ravaged by malaria, and his wife, Xu Shuping, has a four-inch scar running down her left arm, a reminder of the tumble their car took as it was hurtling along rugged roads.
Still, the couple made $3 million in profit last year. They have homes in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Wenzhou and Diamond Bar. If he could do it over again, Hu says, he wouldn't change a thing. "Many of the Africans who used to be barefooted are now wearing my shoes," he says, speaking from Wenzhou, where he was visiting for the lunar New Year holiday.
Scholars attribute such entrepreneurial verve to geographic isolation. Wenzhou is hemmed in by jagged mountains on three sides and the East China Sea on the fourth. Lacking arable land, many villagers must travel to prosper.
Wenzhou traders have been at the forefront of Communist China's market-driven economic reforms — launching businesses, raising capital and making investments — but their tradition of private enterprise goes much further back. During the Southern Song Dynasty about 850 years ago, a school of thought known as Yongjia (the old name of Wenzhou) espoused that government should embrace commercial society to develop the nation.
The Yongjia school, led by scholar Ye Shi, was ridiculed by the dominant Confucian philosophers of the day, whose view of social rank had teachers and bureaucrats at the top and the merchant class at the bottom.
More recently, Wenzhou's spirit of capitalism might have been further nurtured by the spread of Christianity in the city in the same way the Protestant work ethic pushed America's economic development. In an officially atheist country, Wenzhou is home to more than 2,000 churches, a legacy of the Nanking Treaty of 1842, which required China to open up nearby Ningbo Port to missionaries.
"Their spirit of putting up with hardship is in harmony with the Protestant spirit," says Xie Jian, executive vice president of Wenzhou University's City College. He says the church's emphasis on mutual trust and aid also may have been a factor in Wenzhou's famed network of private lending.
The city is a hub of informal money channels. Many Wenzhou people bypass state-owned banks, preferring instead to borrow money from relatives, friends and business associates, even though interest rates are much higher.
The loans are typically sealed with handshakes, but Wenzhou people say defaults are very low because borrowers fear ostracism. Such deals have financed tens of thousands of factories in the city and surrounding areas that produce a good chunk of the world's shoes, buttons, eyeglass frames, razors and cigarette lighters.
But these low-value industries aren't enough to sustain several million residents, and many Wenzhou people would rather be their own bosses.
Wenzhou's streets are teeming with new cars, including scores of BMWs and Mercedeses. Rows of fancy villas are being built. But not all the streets are paved with gold. The city mostly looks like other mid-size Chinese cities, with their dusty air, grimy factories and slabs of dreary apartment buildings. Wenzhou's per-capita income of $3,000, about double the nationwide average, would be higher but many neighborhoods are left with mostly old and young people.
Outside their city, many Wenzhou businesspeople help one another. After peddling calendars in New York subway stations, Yu Xilong, 42, raised more than $20,000 by borrowing $500 each from fellow Wenzhou emigrants in town. With that, the middle-school graduate opened a fruit and vegetable stall in a large market on East Broadway.
That was 1993. Today, he owns his own big supermarket on East Broadway, as well as another in Flushing, a section of Queens where he and most Wenzhou natives in New York live.
"I never had to write down a single IOU," Yu says. "We Wenzhou people value credit more than our lives."
ABOUT 100,000 Wenzhou natives now live here in China's Inner Mongolia. Like others from their hometown, they shun politics but have taken pains to dispel the notion that they are carpetbaggers. Some have given up their Wenzhou hukou, or residence cards, and switched to those of their adopted homes.
Erenhot is on China's only railway route to Mongolia, but it wasn't until 1992 that authorities in Beijing allowed the town to operate as an open international hub. Then, only about 8,000 people lived in Erenhot.
The city's population now hovers around 100,000 — with 40,000 migrants coming in to work on construction sites and other jobs, many of them created by Wenzhou merchants.
Ying Hongju, 37, arrived here three years ago, after roaming China's rugged far western Xinjiang region and the northeast.
Ying left his village when he was 15, but all his travels didn't prepare him for Erenhot. In winter, powerful gusts of bai mao feng — literally "white hairy wind" — can blind drivers and knock their cars off roads. On summer evenings, he says, hot air seems to rise up from the ground.
"My lips and nose bled," he says, adding that there's nothing fun to do here. He winces when someone mentions SOS, the name of the Wenzhou bar with the Mongolian dancers. "I don't like it here," Ying says.
But he stays for business. Ying and two partners recently raised $15 million and, in five months, built the International Trade City mall, a block-long, three-story wholesale market that houses 527 tenants who sell silk fabrics, rabbit and fox furs and other commodities. The mall, festooned with red signs in Chinese and Russian, opened last summer and is fully occupied.
"Next year, I'm going to Russia and Mongolia for business," says Ying, whose two children live in Wenzhou with their grandparents while Ying's wife travels between two homes in Inner Mongolia.
For Jin Xiancong, his wife and their two children, Erenhot is home. Not that they've forgotten their first winter, when the couple huddled around a coal-burning stove in a 15-foot room where they lived. That was behind their counter, where they sold hairpins and ribbons for a dime each. Jin remembers his black mustache turning to ice outside, making him look like Santa Claus.
"I would be talking and my eyebrows would freeze," recalls his wife, Xu Xihong. "I just focused on making money."
They made money that winter of 1993. The town was growing and Wenzhou people were repairing shoes and selling watch batteries and items such as buttons, then lacking in this remote outpost.
"My friends said anything that's red and green would sell well," says Jin, sitting in his 40-room Golden Leaf Hotel.
Like most Wenzhou businesspeople, Jin does not want to disclose much about his company's sales and his personal wealth. But he and his wife own four apartments and several shops in Erenhot, and they pull in tens of thousands of dollars more through trading and investments.
On summer weekends, their children go horseback riding nearby in the Mongolian grasslands. Jin and his wife rarely take vacations, although once a year the entire family returns to Wenzhou. Jin couldn't recall exactly when he last saw his four siblings. The oldest left in 1992, paying $15,000 to a so-called snakehead to sneak him into Italy. Jin was the next to leave home. Then the others followed, all to Europe.
Jin says he isn't done roaming the Mongolian region. He wants to find oil and dig up iron ore.
On a recent frigid afternoon, Jin feasted on strips of beef and sheep stomach boiled in soup, then walked along Dinosaur Park, a large field with statues of the sauropods that trampled the area eons ago.
For now, Jin says, he is content to stay in Erenhot. But he sees himself eventually moving back to Wenzhou.
The air outside was below zero. He paused, then recited an old Chinese saying: "A fallen leaf will return to its roots."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
don.lee@latimes.com
*
Cao Jun in The Times' Shanghai Bureau contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nomads12mar12,1,7296495,full.story
By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2007
Erenhot, China — ARMORED dinosaurs once ruled this Gobi Desert area near the Mongolian border. Millions of years later, it became the domain of Genghis Khan and his clan. Now the land belongs to Jin Xiancong and the people from Wenzhou.
Jin ships 10,000 VCRs each month into neighboring Mongolia, runs his own logistics firm and builds office properties. He will soon be mining iron and other minerals in the region, where winter temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero. Summers are so hot and dry that people get nosebleeds.
Jin was just 23 when he arrived in 1993 with little more than two large sacks stuffed with hairpins and trinkets to peddle to Chinese, Mongolian and Russian tourists. "My parents told us, 'Go out and explore,' " says the brush-cut Jin, whose four brothers and sisters are scattered in Italy making and selling apparel. "The farther you can reach, the stronger you get."
Like modern-day Marco Polos, the people of Wenzhou are extending the frontiers of China's booming economy. Hundreds of entrepreneurs from the southeastern Chinese city 1,200 miles away have flocked here, opening retail stores and developing hotels and apartments, even a $1-million nightclub featuring topless Mongolian dancers. (The club is named SOS, presumably after the distress signal.)
Undaunted by treacherous terrain, harsh climate and hostile governments, Wenzhou natives are spreading Chinese commerce not only here but across the globe. They are mining molybdenum in North Korea, acquiring cow leather from African tribes, selling shoes in Iraq and exporting Arctic shrimp and turbot from Iceland.
Even after two decades in Reykjavik, Iceland, seafood trader Xiang Youyi, 45, still finds it tough to endure two months of near-total darkness every year. "This place isn't suitable for living," he says, only to add: "I have opportunities here."
Almost 2 million people from Wenzhou, a metropolitan area of 7.5 million about 250 miles south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, have left their homes over the years in search of riches. The migration goes back at least a century, but accelerated with Communist China's opening up to the West nearly 30 years ago.
"Wherever there is business opportunity, there are Wenzhou people," says Zhong Pengrong, a prominent Chinese economist in Beijing. He calls them a people of "four thousand spirits" — they walk through a thousand rivers and mountains, speak a thousand words to promote their goods, dare to solve problems in a thousand ways and endure a thousand hardships.
"Unlike many other businesspeople in China who became rich overnight," Zhong says, "almost all the Wenzhou people built up their wealth from nothing and amassed their fortune through years of hardship."
NOW, nearly half a million of them are staking their claims in 70 foreign countries, including 100,000 in the United States, mostly New York, where they've opened dozens of supermarkets and dollar stores. They like New York City because they don't need a car to get around, says Lin Ter-Hsien, who started out with a tiny gift shop in Brooklyn, then imported gloves from South Korea and hats from India and now invests in Los Angeles real estate. Lin splits his time between Alhambra, New Jersey and Wenzhou.
In Tanzania, Hu Qiaoming keeps a loaded pistol near his bedside because robbery is rampant. Even with a stable of dogs, an electric fence around his compound and alarms that will bring police within minutes, the 52-year-old entrepreneur doesn't take chances. A couple of years ago, he says, robbers killed two guards protecting the house next door.
Since arriving in the East African nation in 1993, Hu and his wife have opened shoe plants there and in Kenya, Congo, Zambia and Malawi. He keeps shotguns in his factories too, although they can't protect him from the sub-Saharan heat and long rains, political turmoil and disease.
Hu's employees have been ravaged by malaria, and his wife, Xu Shuping, has a four-inch scar running down her left arm, a reminder of the tumble their car took as it was hurtling along rugged roads.
Still, the couple made $3 million in profit last year. They have homes in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Wenzhou and Diamond Bar. If he could do it over again, Hu says, he wouldn't change a thing. "Many of the Africans who used to be barefooted are now wearing my shoes," he says, speaking from Wenzhou, where he was visiting for the lunar New Year holiday.
Scholars attribute such entrepreneurial verve to geographic isolation. Wenzhou is hemmed in by jagged mountains on three sides and the East China Sea on the fourth. Lacking arable land, many villagers must travel to prosper.
Wenzhou traders have been at the forefront of Communist China's market-driven economic reforms — launching businesses, raising capital and making investments — but their tradition of private enterprise goes much further back. During the Southern Song Dynasty about 850 years ago, a school of thought known as Yongjia (the old name of Wenzhou) espoused that government should embrace commercial society to develop the nation.
The Yongjia school, led by scholar Ye Shi, was ridiculed by the dominant Confucian philosophers of the day, whose view of social rank had teachers and bureaucrats at the top and the merchant class at the bottom.
More recently, Wenzhou's spirit of capitalism might have been further nurtured by the spread of Christianity in the city in the same way the Protestant work ethic pushed America's economic development. In an officially atheist country, Wenzhou is home to more than 2,000 churches, a legacy of the Nanking Treaty of 1842, which required China to open up nearby Ningbo Port to missionaries.
"Their spirit of putting up with hardship is in harmony with the Protestant spirit," says Xie Jian, executive vice president of Wenzhou University's City College. He says the church's emphasis on mutual trust and aid also may have been a factor in Wenzhou's famed network of private lending.
The city is a hub of informal money channels. Many Wenzhou people bypass state-owned banks, preferring instead to borrow money from relatives, friends and business associates, even though interest rates are much higher.
The loans are typically sealed with handshakes, but Wenzhou people say defaults are very low because borrowers fear ostracism. Such deals have financed tens of thousands of factories in the city and surrounding areas that produce a good chunk of the world's shoes, buttons, eyeglass frames, razors and cigarette lighters.
But these low-value industries aren't enough to sustain several million residents, and many Wenzhou people would rather be their own bosses.
Wenzhou's streets are teeming with new cars, including scores of BMWs and Mercedeses. Rows of fancy villas are being built. But not all the streets are paved with gold. The city mostly looks like other mid-size Chinese cities, with their dusty air, grimy factories and slabs of dreary apartment buildings. Wenzhou's per-capita income of $3,000, about double the nationwide average, would be higher but many neighborhoods are left with mostly old and young people.
Outside their city, many Wenzhou businesspeople help one another. After peddling calendars in New York subway stations, Yu Xilong, 42, raised more than $20,000 by borrowing $500 each from fellow Wenzhou emigrants in town. With that, the middle-school graduate opened a fruit and vegetable stall in a large market on East Broadway.
That was 1993. Today, he owns his own big supermarket on East Broadway, as well as another in Flushing, a section of Queens where he and most Wenzhou natives in New York live.
"I never had to write down a single IOU," Yu says. "We Wenzhou people value credit more than our lives."
ABOUT 100,000 Wenzhou natives now live here in China's Inner Mongolia. Like others from their hometown, they shun politics but have taken pains to dispel the notion that they are carpetbaggers. Some have given up their Wenzhou hukou, or residence cards, and switched to those of their adopted homes.
Erenhot is on China's only railway route to Mongolia, but it wasn't until 1992 that authorities in Beijing allowed the town to operate as an open international hub. Then, only about 8,000 people lived in Erenhot.
The city's population now hovers around 100,000 — with 40,000 migrants coming in to work on construction sites and other jobs, many of them created by Wenzhou merchants.
Ying Hongju, 37, arrived here three years ago, after roaming China's rugged far western Xinjiang region and the northeast.
Ying left his village when he was 15, but all his travels didn't prepare him for Erenhot. In winter, powerful gusts of bai mao feng — literally "white hairy wind" — can blind drivers and knock their cars off roads. On summer evenings, he says, hot air seems to rise up from the ground.
"My lips and nose bled," he says, adding that there's nothing fun to do here. He winces when someone mentions SOS, the name of the Wenzhou bar with the Mongolian dancers. "I don't like it here," Ying says.
But he stays for business. Ying and two partners recently raised $15 million and, in five months, built the International Trade City mall, a block-long, three-story wholesale market that houses 527 tenants who sell silk fabrics, rabbit and fox furs and other commodities. The mall, festooned with red signs in Chinese and Russian, opened last summer and is fully occupied.
"Next year, I'm going to Russia and Mongolia for business," says Ying, whose two children live in Wenzhou with their grandparents while Ying's wife travels between two homes in Inner Mongolia.
For Jin Xiancong, his wife and their two children, Erenhot is home. Not that they've forgotten their first winter, when the couple huddled around a coal-burning stove in a 15-foot room where they lived. That was behind their counter, where they sold hairpins and ribbons for a dime each. Jin remembers his black mustache turning to ice outside, making him look like Santa Claus.
"I would be talking and my eyebrows would freeze," recalls his wife, Xu Xihong. "I just focused on making money."
They made money that winter of 1993. The town was growing and Wenzhou people were repairing shoes and selling watch batteries and items such as buttons, then lacking in this remote outpost.
"My friends said anything that's red and green would sell well," says Jin, sitting in his 40-room Golden Leaf Hotel.
Like most Wenzhou businesspeople, Jin does not want to disclose much about his company's sales and his personal wealth. But he and his wife own four apartments and several shops in Erenhot, and they pull in tens of thousands of dollars more through trading and investments.
On summer weekends, their children go horseback riding nearby in the Mongolian grasslands. Jin and his wife rarely take vacations, although once a year the entire family returns to Wenzhou. Jin couldn't recall exactly when he last saw his four siblings. The oldest left in 1992, paying $15,000 to a so-called snakehead to sneak him into Italy. Jin was the next to leave home. Then the others followed, all to Europe.
Jin says he isn't done roaming the Mongolian region. He wants to find oil and dig up iron ore.
On a recent frigid afternoon, Jin feasted on strips of beef and sheep stomach boiled in soup, then walked along Dinosaur Park, a large field with statues of the sauropods that trampled the area eons ago.
For now, Jin says, he is content to stay in Erenhot. But he sees himself eventually moving back to Wenzhou.
The air outside was below zero. He paused, then recited an old Chinese saying: "A fallen leaf will return to its roots."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
don.lee@latimes.com
*
Cao Jun in The Times' Shanghai Bureau contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nomads12mar12,1,7296495,full.story
Asians Flex Muscles in California Politics
Asians Flex Muscles in California Politics
By CINDY CHANG
Published: February 27, 2007
Correction Appended
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 26 — When Leland Yee ran for the San Francisco school board in 1986, Asian-American elected officials in California were rare and misconceptions about them rampant. Mr. Yee, who immigrated from China at age 3 and has a doctorate in child psychology, recalled that some people at the time wondered if he knew how to speak English properly.
State Senator Leland Yee is among a growing number of Asian-American public officials in California. At a State of the State speech by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Lee spoke with Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Mr. Yee won that election and went on to serve four years in the State Assembly before being elected in November to the State Senate. He is California’s first Asian-American senator in more than 30 years, and its first of Chinese descent.
California’s 4.4 million Asians constitute the state’s second-largest ethnic minority group (after Latinos) and the largest Asian population in the country, but they have been underrepresented in elected office. Now they are moving beyond fund-raising, where they have long been a force, to elect representatives of their own.
Last year for the first time, Asian candidates across the state were supported by a major political action committee, the Asian American Small Business P.A.C. In addition, the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, a coalition of Democratic legislators of Asian ancestry, helped organize crews of bilingual volunteers to knock on doors and make sure Asian voters made it to the polls.
There are now nine Asian-Americans in the State Legislature, compared with one 10 years ago. In November, a Chinese-American, John Chiang, was elected state controller. Four of the five members of the Board of Equalization, which administers the state’s tax policies, are Asian-American, including Mr. Chiang.
“If you look back a decade or two ago, there was a considerable amount of talk about Latinos being the sleeping giant in politics, that they’d reached a certain level of potentially having impact,” said Paul Ong, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written about Asians’ growing influence in the state. “Asians are at that point.”
If Asians can continue to build on their recent successes and muster voter turnout close to their share of the population, “they will literally be the balance of power in most elections,” said Garry South, a Democratic political consultant who informally advised several Asian-American candidates last fall.
The Census Bureau projects that the number of Asians statewide will nearly double in the next two decades. Of the state’s 2005 estimated population of 35 million, Latinos accounted for 36 percent, or about 12.5 million; Asians 12 percent, or 4.4 million; and blacks 6 percent, or 2.2 million.
Should the number of Asian-American elected officials continue to grow, the issues many of them have pursued — bilingual language assistance, equitable admissions standards at state universities and affordable health care — will become increasingly visible.
Despite efforts by political candidates and nonprofit groups, though, Asian immigrants are registered to vote at rates much lower than the general population. Only recently have Asian-Americans begun to develop the fund-raising and campaign operations that have helped blacks and Latinos solidify their bases.
According to a study by S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, only 37 percent of Asian-Americans in California voted in the 2004 elections, compared with 68 percent of blacks and 73 percent of whites. Latino turnout, at 32 percent, was even lower.
The disparity can partly be explained by lower rates of citizenship: only 67 percent of Asians and 59 percent of Latinos living in California at the time were citizens. But even those who were citizens had much lower rates of voter registration than other ethnic groups.
“I don’t doubt that they’re doing better than they were before, but I don’t think that they’ve reached any sort of critical mass or threshold,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a nonprofit that promotes civic participation among Latinos. “I don’t think they conceive of themselves yet as coherent and cohesive as one needs to.”
Still, progress on turnout and an increased willingness on the part of non-Asians to vote for Asian candidates helped spur the gains of the past decade, analysts say.
It took years, but the Asian-American political community has recovered from a series of demoralizing fund-raising scandals in the 1990s, including a controversial 1996 appearance at a Buddhist temple in the Los Angeles area by Vice President Al Gore.
Already, some non-Asian politicians are paying attention. The Democratic campaigns for governor of Gray Davis in 2002 and Steve Westly last year — both of which Mr. South helped to run — featured advertisements on Asian-language television stations and news conferences geared toward Asian media.
But there is still a long way to go, Asian politicians and political analysts agree, with much depending on the progress Asian-Americans make in strengthening the nascent organizations they have built to support candidates and get out the vote.
Though the number of Asian-American local and state officials is growing, there are only two Asian representatives from California in Congress, of seven Asian-American members in all.
“We’re still two to four election cycles from fulfilling expectations,” said Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, chairman of the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.
Correction: March 1, 2007
An article on Tuesday about the increase in the number of California office holders who are Asian-Americans misstated the number of Asian-Americans on the five-member Board of Equalization. There are four, not three.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/us/27asian.html?ex=1330232400&en=710baee89ee0a5c3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
By CINDY CHANG
Published: February 27, 2007
Correction Appended
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 26 — When Leland Yee ran for the San Francisco school board in 1986, Asian-American elected officials in California were rare and misconceptions about them rampant. Mr. Yee, who immigrated from China at age 3 and has a doctorate in child psychology, recalled that some people at the time wondered if he knew how to speak English properly.
State Senator Leland Yee is among a growing number of Asian-American public officials in California. At a State of the State speech by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Lee spoke with Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Mr. Yee won that election and went on to serve four years in the State Assembly before being elected in November to the State Senate. He is California’s first Asian-American senator in more than 30 years, and its first of Chinese descent.
California’s 4.4 million Asians constitute the state’s second-largest ethnic minority group (after Latinos) and the largest Asian population in the country, but they have been underrepresented in elected office. Now they are moving beyond fund-raising, where they have long been a force, to elect representatives of their own.
Last year for the first time, Asian candidates across the state were supported by a major political action committee, the Asian American Small Business P.A.C. In addition, the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, a coalition of Democratic legislators of Asian ancestry, helped organize crews of bilingual volunteers to knock on doors and make sure Asian voters made it to the polls.
There are now nine Asian-Americans in the State Legislature, compared with one 10 years ago. In November, a Chinese-American, John Chiang, was elected state controller. Four of the five members of the Board of Equalization, which administers the state’s tax policies, are Asian-American, including Mr. Chiang.
“If you look back a decade or two ago, there was a considerable amount of talk about Latinos being the sleeping giant in politics, that they’d reached a certain level of potentially having impact,” said Paul Ong, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written about Asians’ growing influence in the state. “Asians are at that point.”
If Asians can continue to build on their recent successes and muster voter turnout close to their share of the population, “they will literally be the balance of power in most elections,” said Garry South, a Democratic political consultant who informally advised several Asian-American candidates last fall.
The Census Bureau projects that the number of Asians statewide will nearly double in the next two decades. Of the state’s 2005 estimated population of 35 million, Latinos accounted for 36 percent, or about 12.5 million; Asians 12 percent, or 4.4 million; and blacks 6 percent, or 2.2 million.
Should the number of Asian-American elected officials continue to grow, the issues many of them have pursued — bilingual language assistance, equitable admissions standards at state universities and affordable health care — will become increasingly visible.
Despite efforts by political candidates and nonprofit groups, though, Asian immigrants are registered to vote at rates much lower than the general population. Only recently have Asian-Americans begun to develop the fund-raising and campaign operations that have helped blacks and Latinos solidify their bases.
According to a study by S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, only 37 percent of Asian-Americans in California voted in the 2004 elections, compared with 68 percent of blacks and 73 percent of whites. Latino turnout, at 32 percent, was even lower.
The disparity can partly be explained by lower rates of citizenship: only 67 percent of Asians and 59 percent of Latinos living in California at the time were citizens. But even those who were citizens had much lower rates of voter registration than other ethnic groups.
“I don’t doubt that they’re doing better than they were before, but I don’t think that they’ve reached any sort of critical mass or threshold,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a nonprofit that promotes civic participation among Latinos. “I don’t think they conceive of themselves yet as coherent and cohesive as one needs to.”
Still, progress on turnout and an increased willingness on the part of non-Asians to vote for Asian candidates helped spur the gains of the past decade, analysts say.
It took years, but the Asian-American political community has recovered from a series of demoralizing fund-raising scandals in the 1990s, including a controversial 1996 appearance at a Buddhist temple in the Los Angeles area by Vice President Al Gore.
Already, some non-Asian politicians are paying attention. The Democratic campaigns for governor of Gray Davis in 2002 and Steve Westly last year — both of which Mr. South helped to run — featured advertisements on Asian-language television stations and news conferences geared toward Asian media.
But there is still a long way to go, Asian politicians and political analysts agree, with much depending on the progress Asian-Americans make in strengthening the nascent organizations they have built to support candidates and get out the vote.
Though the number of Asian-American local and state officials is growing, there are only two Asian representatives from California in Congress, of seven Asian-American members in all.
“We’re still two to four election cycles from fulfilling expectations,” said Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, chairman of the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.
Correction: March 1, 2007
An article on Tuesday about the increase in the number of California office holders who are Asian-Americans misstated the number of Asian-Americans on the five-member Board of Equalization. There are four, not three.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/us/27asian.html?ex=1330232400&en=710baee89ee0a5c3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Some in Chino Hills nervous about ethnic shift
Some in Chino Hills nervous about ethnic shift
10:00 PM PST on Tuesday, February 6, 2007
By DOUGLAS QUAN
The Press-Enterprise
The opening of a large Asian-oriented supermarket in Chino Hills is getting a mixed reception from residents, a possible sign of things to come as more companies clamor for the hearts -- and appetites -- of the Inland region's increasingly diverse population.
Tawa Supermarket Inc., an Asian grocery chain with 22 stores in California, is planning to open a 99 Ranch Market in a vacated Ralph's store in April or May.
Some Chino Hills residents said they worry the store's arrival could lead to a concentration of other Asian-oriented businesses and a proliferation of Asian-language signs and traffic similar to what exists in some Los Angeles County communities.
"It will turn into anther Rowland Heights," said Carolyn Matta, 67, referring to the unincorporated community 35 miles west of Riverside where the population is 55 percent Asian. "We're not going to be welcomed in our neighborhood."
Supporters said the store sells fresh seafood, produce and specialty items that can't be found elsewhere. The complaints smack of racism and ignorance, some of them said.
"Let us put our bigotry aside and welcome the Indians, Hindus, Asian, and other ethnicities into our neighborhoods," Michael Newton of Chino wrote in a letter to the Chino Hills Champion newspaper.
Alan Lee, Tawa's vice chairman, said that of the company's 22 stores throughout California, some attract up to 25,000 visitors a week, and they integrate well in the communities they serve.
"We are a full-service market" catering to Asians and non-Asians, Lee said.
Timothy Fong, a professor and director of Asian-American studies at Cal State Sacramento, said many of the complaints are similar to those heard during the '80s, when an influx of Asian-oriented businesses in Monterey Park, the first "suburban Chinatown," caused an uproar and the City Council attempted to pass English-only ordinances but failed.
"Monterey Park went through a lot of upheaval that a lot of people regret," Fong said.
Demographic Shift
The Tawa Supermarket chain's push into the Inland region was inevitable given the area's growing and affluent Asian population, retail experts and economists said.
While the overall Asian population remains small -- nearly 5 percent in Riverside County and almost 6 percent in San Bernardino County, according to the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey -- some pockets have grown tremendously.
In Chino Hills, a former farming community now marked by new housing and shopping developments, low crime and lots of green space, the Asian population climbed from 22 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2005, Census figures show. The city cites a figure of 28 percent, using a different source.
The opening of the store "is a reflection of changing demographics," said Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry, adding that she plans to shop at the new store.
Asian-Americans are drawn to the Inland region's new homes and good schools, said Edward Chang, a UCR professor of ethnic studies.
Tawa isn't the only big player in the Asian grocery industry pushing into the Inland region. The Hannam Chain, which operates five Market World stores in Southern California catering largely to a Korean clientele, hopes to open a sixth store in Rancho Cucamonga by summer, said Vice President Steve Kim.
That city's Asian population rose from 6 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2005.
Experts said they predict more of these types of stores to open in other Inland cities in coming years, including Corona, whose Asian population jumped from 8 percent to 11 percent from 2000 to 2005.
What they lack in numbers, they make up for in affluence, said Julia Huang, president of interTrend, a Long Beach marketing firm that helps companies target the Asian-American community.
"At the end of the day, it's the buying power," she said.
The 2005 census figures show that nationally Asian-Americans had a median household income of $61,094, higher than any other group.
Opposition
While some regard the eastward expansion of these supermarkets as Capitalism 101 -- go where the demand is -- others view their arrival as a threat.
"We have diversity in Chino Hills and I am HAPPY with the degree of diversity we now have in Chino Hills," Larry Blugrind wrote in a letter to the City Council. "In Rowland Heights, THERE IS NO DIVERSITY -- IT'S ALL ASIAN!!!"
Darrin Lee wrote in a letter to the local newspaper that he fears a loss of the aesthetic qualities in the neighborhood.
"I see the 99 Ranch Market with its soiled concrete pathways and smeared windows covered with posters in Chinese writing. I smell the odor of spoiled seafood in the trash Dumpster out back," he wrote.
In a phone interview, Lee said the issue is not about xenophobia but ensuring that the store adheres to community standards.
Samuel Park, owner of a neighboring dry cleaning store, said he worries how the new store will impact his business, since most of his customers are non-Asian.
The 99 Ranch store can attract more customers by hiring employees who reflect the makeup of the community, he suggested.
Lee, Tawa's vice chairman, said 99 Ranch stores are similar to other large chains.
Signs will be printed in English and the company welcomes job applications from everyone, he said.
Lee said he hopes traffic from the 99 Ranch will benefit neighboring businesses and vice versa.
"We'll be a good neighbor... we'll be a plus to the city, the community," he said.
Tony Gallimore, manager of a neighboring hobby store, said he has never shopped at a 99 Ranch and looks forward to seeing what they have to offer. Increased traffic should be good for business, he said.
"We're all expecting a spillover (of customers) ... and bring up sales a bit."
However, the prediction that the new store will attract other Asian-oriented businesses is not off-base, some experts said.
When a major Asian-oriented grocer moves in, ancillary businesses, such as boutiques or medical offices, catering to an Asian clientele tend to follow, said John Husing, a Redlands-based economist.
In Rowland Heights, the 99 Ranch store is surrounded by many Asian-oriented businesses, including dim-sum eateries and clothing boutiques.
But at the World Market store in Diamond Bar, neighbors include a PetSmart and a Jo-Ann craft store.
"I don't think Chino Hills will become Rowland Heights overnight" because the Asian population is not as large, said Vilma Chau, a senior vice president at Lee & Associates, a commercial real estate firm.
At the World Market in Diamond Bar and the 99 Ranch in Rowland Heights, most aisle signs and shelf labels have English translations. Spicy kimchi soup shares the same aisle as Ragu sauce. Chili bamboo shoots are stacked near Aunt Jemima-brand syrup.
Western pop music plays over the speakers at the World Market. Promotional announcements at 99 Ranch are spoken in Chinese and English.
Rob Jaworoski, 45, a Chino Hills resident and 99 Ranch fan, said the fruit and vegetables typically cost half what you'd pay at a mainstream store.
"I think if people give it a chance and see how good it is, they'll be happy," he said.
Old Arguments
It's unfair to label all critics as bigoted, but some of the criticisms probably are driven by an underlying anti-Asian sentiment, said Cal State Sacramento's Fong.
The sentiment is rooted in a fear that Latinos are taking over culture and Asians are taking over the economy, he said.
There are some lessons from the 1980s that residents in Chino Hills can learn from, Fong said.
The Asian-American community could try to integrate more fully into the community, by joining social clubs, for instance.
Meanwhile, established residents should accept that it's not so simple anymore to demand assimilation from newcomers.
"Change is inevitable," Fong said. "If white yuppies were moving in, would they be complaining? I doubt it."
http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_D_asian07.25558b4.html
10:00 PM PST on Tuesday, February 6, 2007
By DOUGLAS QUAN
The Press-Enterprise
The opening of a large Asian-oriented supermarket in Chino Hills is getting a mixed reception from residents, a possible sign of things to come as more companies clamor for the hearts -- and appetites -- of the Inland region's increasingly diverse population.
Tawa Supermarket Inc., an Asian grocery chain with 22 stores in California, is planning to open a 99 Ranch Market in a vacated Ralph's store in April or May.
Some Chino Hills residents said they worry the store's arrival could lead to a concentration of other Asian-oriented businesses and a proliferation of Asian-language signs and traffic similar to what exists in some Los Angeles County communities.
"It will turn into anther Rowland Heights," said Carolyn Matta, 67, referring to the unincorporated community 35 miles west of Riverside where the population is 55 percent Asian. "We're not going to be welcomed in our neighborhood."
Supporters said the store sells fresh seafood, produce and specialty items that can't be found elsewhere. The complaints smack of racism and ignorance, some of them said.
"Let us put our bigotry aside and welcome the Indians, Hindus, Asian, and other ethnicities into our neighborhoods," Michael Newton of Chino wrote in a letter to the Chino Hills Champion newspaper.
Alan Lee, Tawa's vice chairman, said that of the company's 22 stores throughout California, some attract up to 25,000 visitors a week, and they integrate well in the communities they serve.
"We are a full-service market" catering to Asians and non-Asians, Lee said.
Timothy Fong, a professor and director of Asian-American studies at Cal State Sacramento, said many of the complaints are similar to those heard during the '80s, when an influx of Asian-oriented businesses in Monterey Park, the first "suburban Chinatown," caused an uproar and the City Council attempted to pass English-only ordinances but failed.
"Monterey Park went through a lot of upheaval that a lot of people regret," Fong said.
Demographic Shift
The Tawa Supermarket chain's push into the Inland region was inevitable given the area's growing and affluent Asian population, retail experts and economists said.
While the overall Asian population remains small -- nearly 5 percent in Riverside County and almost 6 percent in San Bernardino County, according to the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey -- some pockets have grown tremendously.
In Chino Hills, a former farming community now marked by new housing and shopping developments, low crime and lots of green space, the Asian population climbed from 22 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2005, Census figures show. The city cites a figure of 28 percent, using a different source.
The opening of the store "is a reflection of changing demographics," said Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry, adding that she plans to shop at the new store.
Asian-Americans are drawn to the Inland region's new homes and good schools, said Edward Chang, a UCR professor of ethnic studies.
Tawa isn't the only big player in the Asian grocery industry pushing into the Inland region. The Hannam Chain, which operates five Market World stores in Southern California catering largely to a Korean clientele, hopes to open a sixth store in Rancho Cucamonga by summer, said Vice President Steve Kim.
That city's Asian population rose from 6 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2005.
Experts said they predict more of these types of stores to open in other Inland cities in coming years, including Corona, whose Asian population jumped from 8 percent to 11 percent from 2000 to 2005.
What they lack in numbers, they make up for in affluence, said Julia Huang, president of interTrend, a Long Beach marketing firm that helps companies target the Asian-American community.
"At the end of the day, it's the buying power," she said.
The 2005 census figures show that nationally Asian-Americans had a median household income of $61,094, higher than any other group.
Opposition
While some regard the eastward expansion of these supermarkets as Capitalism 101 -- go where the demand is -- others view their arrival as a threat.
"We have diversity in Chino Hills and I am HAPPY with the degree of diversity we now have in Chino Hills," Larry Blugrind wrote in a letter to the City Council. "In Rowland Heights, THERE IS NO DIVERSITY -- IT'S ALL ASIAN!!!"
Darrin Lee wrote in a letter to the local newspaper that he fears a loss of the aesthetic qualities in the neighborhood.
"I see the 99 Ranch Market with its soiled concrete pathways and smeared windows covered with posters in Chinese writing. I smell the odor of spoiled seafood in the trash Dumpster out back," he wrote.
In a phone interview, Lee said the issue is not about xenophobia but ensuring that the store adheres to community standards.
Samuel Park, owner of a neighboring dry cleaning store, said he worries how the new store will impact his business, since most of his customers are non-Asian.
The 99 Ranch store can attract more customers by hiring employees who reflect the makeup of the community, he suggested.
Lee, Tawa's vice chairman, said 99 Ranch stores are similar to other large chains.
Signs will be printed in English and the company welcomes job applications from everyone, he said.
Lee said he hopes traffic from the 99 Ranch will benefit neighboring businesses and vice versa.
"We'll be a good neighbor... we'll be a plus to the city, the community," he said.
Tony Gallimore, manager of a neighboring hobby store, said he has never shopped at a 99 Ranch and looks forward to seeing what they have to offer. Increased traffic should be good for business, he said.
"We're all expecting a spillover (of customers) ... and bring up sales a bit."
However, the prediction that the new store will attract other Asian-oriented businesses is not off-base, some experts said.
When a major Asian-oriented grocer moves in, ancillary businesses, such as boutiques or medical offices, catering to an Asian clientele tend to follow, said John Husing, a Redlands-based economist.
In Rowland Heights, the 99 Ranch store is surrounded by many Asian-oriented businesses, including dim-sum eateries and clothing boutiques.
But at the World Market store in Diamond Bar, neighbors include a PetSmart and a Jo-Ann craft store.
"I don't think Chino Hills will become Rowland Heights overnight" because the Asian population is not as large, said Vilma Chau, a senior vice president at Lee & Associates, a commercial real estate firm.
At the World Market in Diamond Bar and the 99 Ranch in Rowland Heights, most aisle signs and shelf labels have English translations. Spicy kimchi soup shares the same aisle as Ragu sauce. Chili bamboo shoots are stacked near Aunt Jemima-brand syrup.
Western pop music plays over the speakers at the World Market. Promotional announcements at 99 Ranch are spoken in Chinese and English.
Rob Jaworoski, 45, a Chino Hills resident and 99 Ranch fan, said the fruit and vegetables typically cost half what you'd pay at a mainstream store.
"I think if people give it a chance and see how good it is, they'll be happy," he said.
Old Arguments
It's unfair to label all critics as bigoted, but some of the criticisms probably are driven by an underlying anti-Asian sentiment, said Cal State Sacramento's Fong.
The sentiment is rooted in a fear that Latinos are taking over culture and Asians are taking over the economy, he said.
There are some lessons from the 1980s that residents in Chino Hills can learn from, Fong said.
The Asian-American community could try to integrate more fully into the community, by joining social clubs, for instance.
Meanwhile, established residents should accept that it's not so simple anymore to demand assimilation from newcomers.
"Change is inevitable," Fong said. "If white yuppies were moving in, would they be complaining? I doubt it."
http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_D_asian07.25558b4.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)