news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051113/ap_on_re_us/asians_bullied
AP Asian Youths Suffer Harassment in Schools By ERIN TEXEIRA, AP National Writer Sun Nov 13,12:26 PM ET NEW YORK - Eighteen-year-old Chen Tsu was waiting on a Brooklyn subway pl atform after school when four high school classmates approached him and demanded cash. He showed them his empty pockets, but they attacked him a nyway, taking turns pummeling his face.
Department of Justice consent decree to curb alleged "severe and pervasive harassment directed at Asian-American students by their classmates." Since then, the Justice Department credits Lafayette officials with addressing the problem bu t the case is far from isolated. Nationwide, Asian students say they're often beaten, threatened and calle d ethnic slurs by other young people, and school safety data suggest tha t the problem may be worsening. Youth advocates say these Asian teens, s tereotyped as high-achieving students who rarely fight back, have for ye ars borne the brunt of ethnic tension as Asian communities expand and ne ighborhoods become more racially diverse. "We suspect that in areas that have rapidly growing populations of Asian- Americans, there often times is a sort of culture clashing," said Aimee Baldillo of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. In the last five years, Census data show, Asians mostly Chinese have grown from 5 percent to nearly 10 percent of Brooklyn residents. In the Bensonhurst neighborhood, historically home to Italian and Jewish famili es, more than 20 percent of residents now are Asian. Those changes have escalated ethnic tension on campuses such as Lafayette High, according t o Khin Mai Aung, staff attorney at the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is advocating for Lafayette students. "The schools are the one place where everyone is forced to come together, " Aung said. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders grew from 37 million to nea rly 12 million. After Latinos, Asians are the nation's fastest-growing e thnic group. Stories of Asian youth being bullied and worse are common. In recent year s: A Chinese middle schooler in San Francisco was mercilessly taunted unti l his teacher hid him in her classroom at lunchtime. Three Korean-American students were beaten so badly near their Queens h igh school that they skipped school for weeks and begged to be transferr ed. A 16-year-old from Vietnam was killed last year in a massive brawl in B oston. The New York City Council, after hearing h ours of testimony from Asian youth, last year passed a bill to track bul lying and train educators on prevention. Also last year, California Asse mblywoman Judy Chu won passage of a new law to allow hate crimes victims more time up to three years to file civil suits; the bill was inspi red by a 2003 San Francisco incident in which five Asian teens were atta cked by a mob of youth. In August, the Oakland-based Asian Pacific Islander Youth Violence Preven tion Center organized a first-ever conference on the subject in Sacramen to. Isami Arifuku, assistant director of the center, said she expected a bout 200 participants but nearly double that number attended. Experts offer several broad explanations for the bullying problem. In the broadest strokes, Baldillo said, Asian youth are sometimes small i n stature and often adhere to cultural mores urging them to avoid confro ntation and focus on academics. Many don't report bullying because they fear repercussions or don't want to embarrass their families, she added. The parents of limited-English students often have little access to translators and struggle to advocate for their chi ldren, Aung said. Chen Tsu described his beating in April at a subway station, saying throu gh a translator: "Those guys looked like they could kill somebody. A 2003 California survey by the Services and Advocacy for Asian Youth Consortium found that 14 perc ent of Asian youth said they join gangs for protection. Department of Ju stice school crime data found the number of Asian youth carrying weapons nearly tripled from 1999 to 2001. "There are more Asian kids being brought to juvenile court for assault an d battery," Arifuku said. "The thing we're finding in their history is t hat they had been picked on called names and teased and in some case s they lashed out and retaliated." Advocates and students say that, typically, large fights erupt after week s or months of verbal taunting. For months sta rting late last year, Hmong students had been repeatedly called names an d had food thrown at them. "There had been patterns of this happening over and over again," said Yeu ng, whose group investigated the case on behalf of Asian students. Seven students were treated for injuries, 12 were suspend ed and two faced expulsion, she said. Eight were convicted of misdemeano r assault, said Fresno police Sgt. This year, officials at Edison High added more security and started an on -campus human relations council to address ethnic tension, Bedi said. At Lafayette High, tension has long been high on campus and in surroundin g areas, said Steve Chung, president of the United Chinese Association o f Brooklyn, whose group was founded in late 2002 after an earlier studen t beating. That incident "was like the ignition it started a fire" in the community. The student, a straight-A senior, was thrashed to unconsciousness while a nti-Chinese slurs were yelled at him. Some news reported dubbed the scho ol "Horror High," and Chinese students began going public about the prob lem. "The more we dug into Lafayette High School, the more we found," Chung sa id. Aung's probing revealed that school administrators seemed reluctant to in tervene, translation services for parents and students was spotty and te achers who reported the problems may have been punished. But "the problems the re went back many, many years," said Michael Best, general counsel for N ew York City schools. Since signing the consent decree in June, he said, "the situation at the school in our view is very, very different." A Ju stice Department spokesman agreed that the school has been "very respons ive." Teachers this year are getting training to curb harassment, translation s ervices throughout the district have been beefed up, and race relations experts are working with students and staff on campus, deputy New York s chools chancellor Carmen Farina said. Last year, Lafayette's longtime principal retired, and many are optimisti c about the new principal, Jolanta Rohloff. In addition, new vice princi pal Iris Chiu is fluent in Chinese and working closely with parents and students. "We actively sought someone that we knew could handle the deli cacy of the school," Farina said. Still, she said, an incident already has been reported since school start ed: An Asian student was attacked by several classmates on his way to th e subway.
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