Immigrants Chinese

On a February morning in 1988, in a large, dingy chamber of the federal District Court House in Manhattan, a clerk handed me my Certificate of Naturalization listing my height, weight, color of eyes ("brown"), hair ("black") and complexion ("medium"), then a judge led me and more than 150 other petitioners (most of whom seemed to be of "medium" or "dark" complexion) through the pledge of allegiance and pronounced us legitimate Americans.

The absurdly picturesque city of Oaxaca, Mexico, isn't the type of place that cultivates a knee-jerk, down-with-Wall-Street, death-to-Disney brand of anti-Americanism. Straddling two mountain ranges, a long bus ride south from Mexico City, Oaxaca (pronounced wa-HA-ka) revels in its physical isolation, native traditions and 21st century cosmopolitanism.

When I was growing up in the 1920s in San Francisco's isolated Chinatown, I was unaware that, according to Sandy Lydon, "strangled by immigration restrictions and decimated by the emigration or death of many of the pioneer immigrants, the Chinese population in America dropped to its lowest point in 1920." Through passing remarks of my parents, I heard of Chinese communities elsewhere: fishing in Monterey, gambling in Salinas, farming at "The Great River."

The images from Lincoln Heights looked ferocious: A running battle between helmeted, baton-wielding police and enraged youths hurling bottles and setting fires in the streets. The intense reaction to the police shooting of a 14-year-old boy stunned many outsiders, and even shocked many familiar with the bustling neighborhoods east of the Los Angeles River. But the outbursts of violence July 29-30 bared the pent-up frustrations among many young Latinos throughout L.A.'

Japan is awash in boat people. Japanese law enforcement has been stunned by a sudden influx of illegal immigrants, mainly Chinese, Koreans, Pakistanis and other Asians who arrive in rickety fishing boats and sneak ashore in the middle of the night on deserted coastlines in western Japan. Police blame a new alliance between Chinese "snakeheads," members of syndicates that specialize in smuggling illegal immigrants into lucrative labor markets, and Japanese yakuza gangsters.

It's the Great American Success Story. And it's strictly kosher. It's the Moshe Dragon glatt kosher Chinese restaurant in a Rockville, Md., shopping center. Located next to Katz's Kosher Supermarket, the 2-month-old restaurant is at the center of kosher culture in suburban Montgomery County. Its proprietor is Lenny Ung, 28. No, he's not Jewish. He's Buddhist by background, a Vietnamese immigrant who traces his ancestry to China. With his family, Ung fled the Vietnam War to Cambodia.

When Kim Hua opened a toy store three months ago in the heart of Skid Row, the derelicts who congregated outside did not discourage him. "We were aware that this area could be dangerous, but we selected the spot because this is the center of the toy business," said Hua, who arrived here from Vietnam six years ago. "All our customers know about us and come directly here to shop. We don't have to advertise, the customers come to you." But crime is booming along with business.

The campaign to defeat Proposition 187 has spawned an unprecedented grass-roots movement in California's diverse Asian American communities, bringing politically savvy third-generation Chinese and Japanese Americans working side by side with newer Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and Cambodian immigrants.

Carlos Gonzalez scanned Norcross Public Library's thin shelves of Spanish-language fiction: There were no works by Isabel Allende or Octavio Paz or even Miguel de Cervantes. The Salvadoran immigrant, 33, who visits the library to check his e-mail and read the online version of El Salvador's daily newspaper, El Diario de Hoy, chuckled as he looked at the translated works of J.K. Rowling and Stephen King.