Posted on: Monday, February 7, 2005
Dialogue with police helps ease immigrants' move to new culture
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
Every table in the main dining area of the New Empress Restaurant in Chinatown was filled with people being served food for thought.
There was hunger for this information — how to protect yourself against crime — and now there was an important added ingredient: a translator. Officer Sidney Sweeney, one of the contingent from the district's bike unit, explained why it's important to call the police at the first sign of trouble.
"We want to try to take care of a situation before it escalates and gets out of hand," Sweeney said. He paused while Laisin Lee conveyed that principle in Cantonese; another interpreter in a corner of the room translated to a smaller gathering of Mandarin speakers.
Most of the crime tips the police presented at this recent weekend forum were identical to what they tell everyone. Don't open the door to strangers. Hold your purse close to your body. Teach your kids to call 911, and know where they are.
Some of the tips enlightened the crowd of 200 about solutions to worrisome problems. One man expressed a fear about retribution if he reported a crime. Sweeney explained the use of temporary restraining orders as protection.
But the greatest help that day came in overcoming the language gap.
In this room, at least, there was a way people could bring their concerns to police and be understood, said Yuk Pang Law, a board member with the forum sponsor, the Chinese Community Action Coalition.
"If your language is not English, they feel no sense to communicate, he (the police officer) will not understand me, anyway," Law said.
Language and cultural barriers often impede immigrants in their adjustment to life in Hawai'i. It's a challenge that the police in Chinatown, one neighborhood with a high proportion of non-English speakers, deal with routinely.
There are other problems that leave immigrants vulnerable, some community leaders say. Among people from some countries, there may be a mistrust of police authority, or a lack of experience with public safety risks in an urbanized Western society.
The Oct. 2 kidnapping and assault of a teenage girl abducted on a downtown street was one incident that spurred the coalition into hosting this event, Law said. The suspect in that case drove a van bearing the Big Brothers Big Sisters logo, she said, so clearly it's hard for anyone to know whom to trust.
All immigrant groups face these adjustment problems, advocates say. Regardless of culture, the urban environment can strike them as foreign if they come from a rural setting. Two years ago, two Micronesian girls were struck by an SUV on Punchbowl near the H-1 exit. In their home community, they probably never had to worry about cars moving at freeway speeds, said Manny Sound, president of the grassroots organization Micronesians United.
"There are no traffic lights at all," he said. "The kids tend to run anytime into the road, without looking at lights, red or green or yellow. The roads are bad there, so the cars usually go very slow.
Immigrants also may hesitate even more than the general public before calling the police. There may be institutional fear of police in their home country's government or, Sound said, a simple cultural preference to work out problems within the family.
"Normally, they would try to solve the thing themselves before they call the police," he said.
At the law-enforcement end of this equation, however, these delays make the job of solving the case a lot tougher, said Maj. Kevin Lima, who heads the Honolulu Police Department's District 1, the zone that encompasses much of the city's urban core.
He remembered a series of midnight-watch complaints about noise and other "nuisance" crimes in the Kapi'olani area, where many Korean nationals live. Some would wait before calling, he said.
"We got called on three or four occasions where, when we get there, nobody wants to say anything.
"There is a problem with immigrants that come to the United States," he added. "They tend not to trust police. They don't feel that's how you solve problems, they'll deal with that themselves ... a lot of times it's a matter of convincing the new arrivals that that's the way it's done here."
He also cited a case in which an extortion complaint came in — not from the alleged victim, but from someone entrusted with the information.
"We went through that third party to convince the immigrant to come forward, and the person never came forward," he said. "Whether it was legitimate extortion, we don't really know — all we got was that third-party report."
The gulf between police and the immigrant population may be narrowed somewhat through increased physical presence of police in the community. After about a decade's hiatus, the department recently revived foot patrols as one of the first assignments for newly recruited and trained police officers.
In the interim years, the downtown-Chinatown community residents have filled in with regular "crime walks" to look for trouble spots and keep police informed. But Wing Tek Lum, another board member with the Chinese coalition, believes that the foot patrols will go a long way toward bridging the gap. The crime forum was an occasion in which the community could see the officers as human beings, Lum said, and ongoing personal interactions with police in the neighborhood will make everyone more comfortable.
Many immigrants, including the Chinese, grew up in an authoritarian system of government and law enforcement, Lum said. In the restaurant that day, the people were faced with four men, not an intimidating, impersonal force.
"It was good there was this genuine dialogue," he said.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
