They mix, not match

Parishioners quietly stream into Our Lady of La Vang in Santa Ana, smile politely and head their separate ways.

Latinos take the chairs on the right, Vietnamese go left.

Father Joseph Nguyen quietly watches from the altar before moving to the pulpit, where he preaches five minutes in Spanish, then Vietnamese, then Spanish, alternating until the service ends. Prayers, songs and responses are done in both languages.

The scene at the Roman Catholic church is repeated each morning, five days a week.

Everyone is cordial, everyone takes turns. Yet the two communities sit apart, often attend separate Sunday school classes and socialize primarily with their own group. Certain religious customs, such as the intense Latino veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, are not shared by the others. By the same measure, many Latinos are ambivalent about the reverence for Our Lady of La Vang, a vision of the Virgin Mary cherished by Vietnamese.

Ascension Landeras, 44, accepts the differences with a shrug.

"They are in their world, we are in our world, but there are no problems," she said.

The church offers a glimpse into what is occurring throughout central Orange County as growing Vietnamese and Latino communities find themselves living in ever closer quarters, sharing neighborhoods, schools and churches. While some foresee conflict, others see the new face of Orange County.

Father Nguyen knew when Our Lady of La Vang absorbed the smaller, overwhelmingly Latino Our Lady of Lourdes in 2000 that he would have a cultural chasm to bridge.

"The first thing I learned was my own limitations. Sometimes I have to let people's cultures take over," he said. Nguyen takes heart in the fact that the two communities worship together despite their differences.

The long-established Latinos still dominate the region, especially in cities such as Santa Ana, but Vietnamese numbers have steadily risen in Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Westminster and Anaheim.

In Garden Grove, for example, Asians, mostly of Vietnamese descent, now represent 33.7% of the population while Latinos make up 40.2%, according to 2005 U.S. census figures.

Latinos were 30.8% of Orange County's population in 2000, and Asians were 13.6%. In 2005, Latinos increased to 32.7%, while Asians rose to 16.1%. Some 157,012 of them were Vietnamese. The next-highest Asian group was Koreans, at 74,999.