Los Angeles: The New Ellis Island

(5 of 11)

solidarity. "Their heritage was in their hearts," he says, munching dates and fiddling with worry beads. "But they kept it in the closet." The recent immigrants, displaced by the 1975-76 Lebanese civil war and its aftermath, tend to be Moslem rather than Christian. Says Vicki Tamoush of the National Association of Arab Americans: "Among these people, there is a much greater effort to instill a sense of Arabism in their children."

And finally, as if for international symmetry's sake, an Israeli community, 90,000 strong, has sprung up since 1970. The new immigrants tend to be young professionals. Many are discouraged by Israel's erratic economy and mandatory military service, and attracted by L.A.'s mild Mediterranean climate and economic promise.

ASIANS. The "ABCs" (American-born Chinese) tend to be contemptuous of the "FOBs" ("fresh off the boat"). L.A. Filipinos have their own snickering Tagalog-language acronym—"TNTs"—for their new and often illegal arrivals. Nisei, or U.S.-born Japanese, are embarrassed by Japanese nationals who speak no English; newly arrived Japanese, in turn, are wary of L.A.'s native sansei (third generation) and yonsei (fourth). But all the Japanese seem to agree that they are superior to other Asians. And everybody picks on the Koreans. Says U.C.L.A. Sociologist Harry Kitona: "They regard the Koreans as the Mortimer Snerds of America. They cannot learn the language, their food smells and they cannot express themselves." In a city with half a dozen major "Oriental" communities, national distinctions seem magnified, perhaps because these uneasy ethnic cousins have been thrown together as never before.

To be sure, L.A.'s Japanese Americans have good reason to feel established, if not superior. A neighborhood of Japanese immigrants was thriving downtown in Little Tokyo when Beverly Hills was empty land. The area, which was renamed Bronzeville during World War II when its residents were interned, has been retaken by the Japanese, and is again a main gathering spot for 175,000 Japanese-Americans scattered around the county. A brand new, $12.6 million cultural complex provides reminders of home: a lush, still garden of camphor and golden-rain trees, a sleek theater for Japanese-language productions, a brick plaza for a snack of age tofu (deep-fried soybean curd) and a stroll.

But not all Japanese Angelenos like the ascetic calm. "I feel like a stranger down in Little Tokyo," says Warren Furutani, 35, a counselor at U.C.L.A. "My life is full of contradictions." Indeed so. Furutani was born in L.A. He does not speak Japanese, but insists that his house guests take off their shoes. He frets about the ethics of buying a Honda. His son is named Sei Malik Abe Furutani. Says the father: "I want to teach this child to learn Japanese, to learn the customs and yet still be an American."

Kazuhiko Yamaguchi moved to L.A. from Kaseda, Japan, in 1964 to make money. After 19 years building up his Mitsuru Restaurant in Little Tokyo, he speaks only Japanese. Unlike Warren Furutani, though, Yamaguchi, 51, is untroubled by cultural contradictions. Says he: "I am not worried about the 'Americanization' of my two children. They were born here, and their styles are different." The odds are,