Asians Say Unity Will Bring Power : Minorities: Community leaders convene to plan how to ensure their group gets its fair share of social services in era of cuts.

GARDEN GROVE —  With social services and other vital needs growing increasingly scarce, Orange County’s burgeoning Asian population needs to unite, get involved in politics and join other ethnic groups to get its fair share, community leaders said Friday.

Echoing pleas increasingly voiced by Latinos and other minority groups, a broad slate of participants gathered at the Garden Grove Community Meeting Center to exchange perspectives on how best to push for more services for the county’s nearly 250,000 Asians.

“You cannot afford to be isolated,” Albert Chu, president of the Asian American Planning Council of Orange County, told the conference.

Other speakers noted the importance of President Bush’s visit to Orange County earlier this month to pay tribute to Asians and Pacific Islanders as the fastest-growing population in the nation.

“It shows we’re very significant,” said Vora Kanthoul, director of the United Cambodian Communities. ‘We have to translate the numbers into power. If you wait for that then nobody will give it to you. Or if they do, it’s tokenism.”

While the 1990 Census documented the dramatic growth of Orange County’s Asian population, all the numbers are virtually useless if the diverse and sometimes divergent community doesn’t understand what they mean and how to use them, said Alan Woo, executive director of the Asian Rehabilitation Services.

In an effort find the answers, Woo organized Friday’s meeting of community leaders, social service workers, health care professionals and representatives of elected officials to ask them for ways to make sure Asians aren’t overlooked.

“If we don’t start this process, we’ll be left behind and become invisible again,” Woo told the approximately 100 people at the conference. “And we will not live up to the potential that we have.”

The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders in Orange County has increased from 86,893 in 1980 to 249,192 in 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They include 28 different nationalities or ethnic groups, and now make up about 10% of the total county population.

But in truth the county’s Asians are inadequately served because they have been stereotyped as a “model minority” group without problems, said Nhu-Hao Duong, coordinator of the county’s Refugee & Immigration Program.

“The assumption is . . . there’s no need to fund them they’re doing so well,” she said. “For us working in social service, we know there are needs.”

These needs include mental health services, housing and child care, Asian leaders say.

Unfortunately, Asians and Pacific Islanders are typically passive and usually hesitate to ask for attention or help, said Mike Watanabe, executive director of the Asian American Drug Abuse Program.

But they can no longer refrain from seeking assistance in an economic environment that forces budget cuts in governmental programs and private funding sources, he added.

“We have to be careful about . . . missing the boat,” Watanabe said.