Local Asians celebrate heritage

Angela Soo

Friday, May 11, 2001 | 9:34 a.m.

Events

The Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, sponsored by the Clark County Library and several local Asian groups, offers events throughout May. They include:

Artifacts Exhibits for Thailand, China, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Philippines and East India will be held in participating libraries.

For more information, call: 382-3493.

When Kelly Cen moved to Henderson three years ago from China, she wasn't prepared for the racial discrimination she encountered in middle school.

Students would tease her when she spoke Chinese to her friends. They would walk by and obnoxiously rant what they thought sounded like the Chinese language, Cen said.

"They made it seem like there was something wrong with being Chinese," Cen said.

Cen, now a sophomore in high school, didn't understand why the other kids looked down on her Chinese heritage when she was proud of it.

"I don't know what their problem was," Cen said. "I like being Chinese."

Cen's experience with discrimination is not unusual. The Las Vegas chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans hears complaints of discrimination, but often finds it hard to resolve any problems.

"People usually wait until a situation gets really bad before coming to us," Vida Lin, the group's vice president, said. "They are afraid to speak. They will tell me, but they don't want me to do anything about it."

The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and other participating Asian organizations hope a month's worth of cultural events during its second annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month will combat such bias by promoting tolerance for ethnic diversity.

"There's so much of the Asian culture that's been integrated into American culture that we take it for granted," Pam Zehnder, chair of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month committee, said. "We hope to highlight those similarities."

The library district has taken on the task as the Asian population in Clark County has grown. The 2000 Census counted 139 percent more people in Southern Nevada with Asian or Pacific Island heritage than in 1990.

And if Las Vegas follows the trend of a recent national poll, that growth makes the need for tolerance greater.

The poll, done by the Committee of 100, a nonprofit Chinese group, showed 25 percent of non-Asians surveyed held a very negative attitude toward Chinese Americans, and 43 percent held a somewhat negative attitude toward them.

"The survey shows that it's (discrimination) there," Henry Tang, chairman of Committee of 100, said. "Our experience is that people suffer alone, and we want them to know that they are not," Tang said.

Cen felt alone in her school. After two months, she couldn't take the taunting anymore. She convinced her father to move the family out of Henderson and into Las Vegas, where there at least was a Chinatown. He agreed but the discrimination followed Cen into high school.

"I still get teased by everyone," Cen said, and she suspects a teacher discriminates against her schoolwork because of her background.

Shan O'Yuan, president of Organization of Chinese Americans Las Vegas chapter, also felt a teacher in middle school graded him unfairly because of his ethnicity. His worst experiences, however, happened in high school.

O'Yuan moved to Las Vegas from Hong Kong when he was 9 years old and is currently a senior at UNLV.

"I would get into fights or verbal confrontations actually," O'Yuan said. "I understand that we joke about racial things sometimes ... and that doesn't really bother me. When it's said in a context that's meant to offend me, that's when I get upset."

The prejudice he experienced when he was younger didn't surprise him, but O'Yuan also lived in Las Vegas long enough to see some major changes, he said.

"I've had racial remarks thrown at me, of course," O'Yuan said. "But you sense that Las Vegas is appreciating diversity more and more."

Several Asian organizations say the library's cultural events planned for this month are a good way of introducing the community to different ethnic groups, which may also foster a better understanding of various cultures.

"Prejudice happens out of ignorance," James Yu, president of Asian Chamber of Commerce, said. "When you don't know, you have a certain amount of fear. When you have this cultural event, it has the possibility of changing that fear."

Tang agreed but also noted that "work needs to be done on both sides to close that gap."

Nancy Wang, a performer in the nationally known storytelling duo, Eth-Noh-Tec, which performed for last week's opening events, remembers being the center of movie stereotypes of Asian Americans.

"I got the usual Suzie Wong and dragon lady," Wang said. "Suzie Wong was a prostitute. It was very painful as a young woman."

Wang is a fifth-generation Chinese American and was born in New Orleans during the '40s. She lived in several cities across the nation before settling down in San Francisco in the late '60s. Throughout her travels, Wang can remember many crude remarks said to her.

On a ski lift in Lake Tahoe once, she recalled, some men shouted insults about her body.

"I felt dehumanized," Wang said. "You're just trying to be accepted and don't know what the hell is going on. You go through life having people asking you where you're from, and what that means is that you're from somewhere else. It's a constant reminder that I'm considered a foreigner."

Wang travels with her husband, Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo, across the United States to educate children on different cultures through telling Asian folktales that touch upon universal concepts, such as truth, courage and compassion.

Zehnder hopes that people will take advantage of the remaining events, which include ongoing art exhibitions, martial arts performances, puppet shows and an exhibition honoring local Nisei soldiers who fought in World War II.

"People just kind of go along in their life and don't stop sometimes to think about the wealth of diversity and realize that the United States comes from everywhere," Zehnder said.