Asians are a bigger part of LV mix

In midtown Las Vegas the Sahara Korean Restaurant stands next to the Tokyo Japanese Restaurant, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Komol Thai-Chinese Restaurant.

Across the plaza is an Asian Supermarket, a Filipino insurance agent, a Korean karaoke bar, a Chinese acupuncturist and Tony Sison's real estate office.

Inside Sison's office the walls are virtually tiled with framed photos of Southern Nevada dignitaries flanked by rows of smiling Asian faces.

"There's (former Gov.) Bob Miller. There's (Las Vegas Mayor) Jan Jones. There's (Gov.) Kenny Guinn. There's (U.S. Sen.) Harry Reid," Sison said, pointing to the photos. "Name any recently elected official -- we've met with them, all of them. And plenty of judges, too. We meet with them all."

Sison's "we" is the Asian-American community, which is growing faster than any other ethnic minority group in Las Vegas.

Largely overlooked on the Vegas vita, Asian-Americans have been an integral -- if quiet -- part of the development of the Las Vegas area for 100 years.

And as the century ends, community leaders are predicting that an era of Asian-American prominence in Las Vegas is about to blossom.

"In 10 years, there will be 300,000 Asians here," said Sison, chairman of the Las Vegas Philippines Chamber of Commerce. "We will be more noticeable, and we will have more influence. You can count on that."

The Asian Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas estimates that there are now about 100,000 Asian-Americans in the county. Clark County's figures -- from July 1998 -- show the Asian-American population at about 65,000, roughly 6 percent of the county, with a 1 percent increase in the growth rate over the year before.

The local Asian-American population grew 169 percent from 1980 to 1990 -- coming here directly from overseas and from elsewhere in the United States.

During that same period, the Hispanic population -- the largest ethnic minority group in Las Vegas -- grew 130 percent and the black population grew 54 percent, according to U.S. Census data.

"It is a great time to be in Las Vegas -- a great time for people from all over the world," said Robert Young, a Taiwan-born American and president of the Asian Chamber of Commerce.

"We are coming here for opportunity like everybody else."

Cultural adaptations

In the back hallway of Thai Town, a small commercial building on Las Vegas Boulevard, four men are playing cards at noon. The sound of the cards slapping the folding table is interrupted only by sporadic exchanges in Thai and the occasional clinking of ice cubes in tall glasses of milky Thai tea.

Across town several hundred worshippers are listening to a Christian pastor deliver a message of sin and salvation in Korean at the Full Gospel Las Vegas Korean Church.

At the west-side Chinese Buddhist Temple, a female monk lights a candle at the front of the sanctuary, and four people sit quietly while she chants in Mandarin.

"We come from very, very different backgrounds," Sison said. "Sometimes we don't all get along as 'Asian-Americans' because we are so diverse -- from different places with different traditions. We are clumped all together, but we are very different. Generally, though, we work well together."

Chinese and Japanese laborers lived in tents in Southern Nevada in the early 1900s, working on the railroad that would link the nation's rapidly growing West Coast with eastern industrial hubs, according to Sue Fawn Chung, UNLV professor.

Chinese entrepreneurs opened laundries in the area in 1905. Japanese farmers were among the first to successfully experiment with desert farming in the area in 1915.

"There's so much Asian-American history here," Caryl Suzuki, a part-time UNLV professor who specializes in Asian-American studies, said.

Names like Tomiyasu and Fong, which now appear on Clark County schools, once stood as reminders that Asian mavericks were making strides in small-town Vegas.

Chinese immigrant Wing Fong's family bought Las Vegas's Rainbow Cafe in 1922; Fong later operated the Silver Cafe and then the present-day Fong's Garden on East Charleston. Fong was a banker and developer throughout his career in Las Vegas, and his wife, Lilly Fong, was an elementary school teacher and the first Asian-American university regent. Today the Fongs are still prominent in Las Vegas; a UNLV building is named for Lilly.

Similarly, Bill Tomiyasu, a Japanese-American, started a successful agricultural business in the area in 1915. Tomiyasu was recognized by the community when an elementary school was named for him shortly after World War II.

Filipinos, the largest Asian-American group in Nevada and California, bring a vastly different cultural heritage to the Las Vegas Asian-American community.

While China and Japan contributed to shaping the history of the Philippines, Spain and the United States also have had significant impacts on Filipinos, creating a society dominated by Catholicism and more conversant in English than many other Asian-American cultures.

As in other U.S. cities, Asian-Americans have created small business and social enclaves scattered throughout Clark County. These include the China Town Plaza on West Spring Mountain Road, the Sahara Plaza on Sahara Avenue near Paradise Road, and a row of businesses on East Charleston.

"You feel more comfortable dealing with people who speak your language and understand your customs," Sison said.

"In the Asian communities, they need attorneys and insurance agents and other business people to support (the community), because there are cultural differences -- and to do business, you really need to understand the cultural differences," Young said.

"The immigration of a lot of Asians to San Francisco and Los Angeles has made it very competitive in our communities there. (Las Vegas) is one of the cities with a lot of potential. That's why they're settling here."

"I love America. I love Las Vegas. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," said Steven O. Kwon, a Korean-born architect who has lived in Las Vegas for 25 years.

"When I go back to Korea, I'm not quite Korean, but when I'm in America, I'm not quite an American," Kwon said.

"I stopped using my Japanese first name in favor of my American middle name to be as American as possible," Caryl Suzuki said.

Moving from one culture to another is no easy task for a group or an individual. And like other ethnic minorities, Asian-Americans endure discrimination.

"But a lot of discrimination cases come down to communication problems. Sometimes people don't mean to insult or offend, but the cultural differences aren't taken into account. And sometimes Asian-Americans can be stubborn and don't want to change," Young said. "Discrimination is rooted in cultural differences."

For example, Suzuki said, Japanese people in general have different cultural mores than mainstream Americans.

"There is a high work ethic among Japanese. The people are meticulous, and there is a high sense of personal honor," Suzuki said. "I think the personal honor might have come from the caste system that was in the country at one time -- meaning there is only one way of doing something right."

"Japanese were taught to be polite -- it was a culture of restraint -- we had no power over our lives. Human lives were insignificant. No social mobility. Bettering your life through education is an American idea, introduced to Japan through World War II," Suzuki said.

Historically, Chinese also have a deep sense of social order and tradition, Young said, probably derived from Confucianism. Such a sense of order, he said, often causes immigrants to be reluctant to adapt to mainstream culture.

"Some Chinese want to work in their comfort zone, they don't want to be challenged," Young said. "There are so many people that can only speak their dialect. But if you don't want to learn English, then there is no way to communicate and then you feel discriminated against." There also are different gender politics and business politics.

"In Asian countries, there is an old tendency of men always walking a couple of feet ahead of women," Young said. "But women are very strong here. We keep telling the older generations here that in the U.S., everything is equal."

Similarly, Young said, "in Asia, to do business, you must be friends first. Business comes later. Here, it's business after a handshake."

Cultural education

Lilly Fong is laughing. Something about the Americanization of China charms her. She is telling the story of her last visit to China:

"They were all drinking Coca-Colas and enjoying hamburgers. Dancing at discos. Copying American movies," she says. "Very, very America." But for Fong, the influence of cultures upon one another is reciprocal.

"Anywhere you look, there is China in America, too," she said. "Fashion, business -- even the U.S. Post Office has seen fit to honor the Chinese culture with a 32-cent stamp that has the sign of our zodiac animal -- this is the year of the hare in China."

"Asia is really beginning to lift the bamboo curtain for the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is drawing from it," she said. She moved here from Superior, Ariz., in the 1950s, the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who ran a kitchen for miners in the Arizona mining town.

"There was prejudice in Las Vegas, yes," she said. "I didn't always feel too welcome. Terms like 'Chinaman' and 'chink' -- we consider these terms offensive ... How did we fight prejudice? There was no way to fight it other than going to my job and doing the best that I could every day."

"But I felt it was important to bridge the gap between cultures," she said. "If there is any way to promote our ancient culture, I try to do it."

She started small: translating Confucius sayings on the back of the menu at Fong's Garden restaurant.

Then she organized Chinese language classes for children and adults in the 1960s. She dressed her grade school class up in the costumes of different cultures to promote "world unity" at a 1950s parade. She initiated the first Chinese language classes at UNLV in the 1970s.

"I thought, maybe we could change China's concept of human rights if Americans could speak their language."

"Education is the way to go about this. Not rioting -- we don't need riots," Fong said. "My father taught us Confucius: 'Education is the equalizer of all. It knows no distinction of class. If I gave you money, you would spend it, so I'm giving you an education that will last a lifetime."

Politics

"What you have to understand about the Asian political movement is that it is very practical," said Bob, a longtime Chinese-American community leader who asked that his real name be withheld. "Just because you are Asian does not mean we will support you. We will back whoever is going to win. We don't care about your age and sex and race. We care about the right choice. Our primary concern is to see who is going to win, because the loser can do nothing for you. We need people in elected positions to be friends." By the early 1990s there were 30 Asian-American organizations in Southern Nevada, ranging from the Thai Cultural Association to the Sri Lankan Association.

Leaders organized an umbrella organization intended to unify and intensify the political power of Asian-Americans -- Concerned Asians for Nevada Development Organization (Can-Do). In more recent years, Asian-Americans have dropped the use of a name for the umbrella organization and network through functions sponsored by community leaders.

The "functions" serve to familiarize mainstream leaders with the Asian community. Twice a month, somewhere between 100 and 800 (depending on the election cycle) Asian-Americans attend dinners to which Las Vegas political leaders and candidates have been invited as featured speakers.

"It is a key thing for us at this stage. We do a lot of functions where elected officials come and get introduced and start to realize that we exist, and start to learn what a Sri Lankan looks like and how they look different from a Laotian," Bob said.

"We feel that we are buying an insurance policy with these dinner functions. We don't really have a major issue right now that we can cry about, but we are actually grouping together now in case we have a major issue come up. If we have an issue, we expect to have an ear. We expect to have them listen to our side of the story, that's all. "Politics here is very different," Young said. "In the U.S., you speak freely about officials. In my country (Taiwan), if you speak something bad about the president, the next day you disappear."

Sison said that the attendance at Asian functions by candidates and elected officials has been excellent in recent years, indicating recognition of their growing numbers and eventual political power.

Soon, Sison said, he expects Asian-Americans to reap the rewards of networking by receiving key political appointments.

"When we ask them to come and join the Asian community, they come. Five years ago we were just getting our feet wet. A lot more can happen now. We're very friendly with leaders here," Sison said.

"We would like to get appointments someday. To active boards -- gaming, public service, active, full-time board positions. Gov. Kenny Guinn made promises like that, and we'll see what happens.

"This is a growing town of various ethnic considerations. The more you involve Asian leaders, the more the diversity will be serviced properly. How does a white guy or a black guy know what the intricacies of being Asian are?"

However, other Asian-American leaders say that holding office is less important than behind-the-scenes networking.

"The major goal is just to bridge the gap. We're trying to open the doors and keep them open. At this time we don't think we're really needing to be in office; we'd rather be the king-maker," Bob said.

The growth of the Asian Americans' local business economy also is important to greater visibility for the minority group in the city.

"I believe their community is having quite an impact," Pat Shalmy, president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, said. "There are many businesses and casinos that seem to cater to Asians. Their Chamber of Commerce is out front and very aggressive about trying to do things for the Asian community, and that will pay off."

Two months ago a group of overseas Asian investors bid $350 million on the Desert Inn hotel, with plans to make the hotel a Vegas-style China-themed resort complete with a mock Great Wall of China.

"I think the Great Wall concept is a good idea, but we still need to analyze: Will it make money?" Young said.

Whether or not it will come to fruition, Sison said, the mere fact that the concept and the financial support have surfaced indicates promise for Asian-American visibility in Las Vegas.

"There are two man-made things on earth that are visible from the moon," Sison said with a grin. "The real Great Wall of China and the light from the top of the Luxor. Maybe we will combine the two at the Desert Inn: Asia in Las Vegas."

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