LA Times: Jews, Asians are building bonds

In today’s The Los Angeles Times, the newspaper reports that “Jews, Asians are building bonds“:

“Jewish and Asian American leaders, whose communities represent nearly 20% of Los Angeles County’s population, are trying to forge friendships in hopes of combating such chronic issues as racism and stereotyping. In an initiative begun by the Anti-Defamation League, about 50 leaders from the Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Korean communities — the four largest Asian population groups in the county — met Wednesday at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo for dinner, a celebration of Hanukkah, some frank discussion and talks by diplomats from Israel, Japan and South Korea. It was the second event since the Asian Jewish Initiative was launched in June in Chinatown. During that meeting, which dealt mostly with demographics, some Jewish leaders were surprised to learn that there were three times as many Asians as Jews in the county. Hanukkah is a “perfect time,” said Faith Cookler, chairwoman of the initiative, to bring people from different traditions together because the holiday is associated with “tolerance, with freedom — freedom from persecution.””

I’ve never lived in Los Angeles (nor do I think I could ever given its awful traffic), but my impression is that although Los Angeles is very diverse, there is a lot of self-segregation of ethnic groups within the vast Los Angeles County, with some better known areas such as Monterey Park (“Little Taipei”) and Rowland Heights, etc… for Asian-Americans. It’s nice to see the pro-active outreach of different ethnic communities getting to know their “neighbors.” My impression of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that although there may be some ethnic enclaves, there is a lot more “integration” amongst the equally diverse population. What do you think? Note: I was born-and-raised in Western Massachusetts, so this is more of a non-native-Californian point-of-view.