Irvine Grows as Chinese Gateway

BY NANCY CLEELAND
DEC. 7, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In a quiet yet dramatic way, Irvine is emerging as one of Southern California’s newest magnets for people of Chinese descent, who are flocking to high-tech jobs, top-rated public schools and the relative safety of suburban life.

Just as Monterey Park was transformed by Chinese immigrants two decades ago, Irvine--with those of Asian descent making up an estimated 20% of the population--is undergoing a demographic shift, drawing immigrants from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong as well as longtime U.S. residents of Chinese descent.

“It just happened in the last four or five years,” said Walter Weng, a real estate agent who caters to a Mandarin-speaking clientele and has seen sales to immigrants boom. “They know Irvine has good weather and security. But mainly they come for the schools. For Asians, schools are always the top priority.”

The changes are evident from the student population at Irvine’s University High School, whose ethnicity is now 40% Asian, to the Culver Plaza shopping mall, where restaurants, banks, a travel agency and a supermarket cater to foreign-born Chinese.

Irvine is home to the county’s largest school of Chinese culture, where about 1,000 children are taught Mandarin as well as Chinese customs every Sunday morning.

And the Orange County Chinese American Chamber of Commerce is increasingly seeing its membership shift south, to Irvine, said Angela Wang, president of the 200-member chamber. “It’s like the new Taipei,” she said. “And it’s happening very fast.”

So fast that immigrant Linda Chen recently ran into an old grade-school classmate from Taiwan--in her Irvine neighborhood. “That’s how small the world is now,” said Chen, who moved from Taipei seven years ago so her three children could attend Irvine’s public schools.

Irvine’s increasing diversity belies the young planned community’s image as homogenous and bland. “It really is a melting pot, and I think that surprises people,” said Jacquie Ellis, CEO of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. “It seems to be a really nice cross-section.”

In fact, one of the city’s attractions to established, affluent Chinese immigrants is its tolerance, said Yung Chen, a professor of Asian American history at UC Irvine, and no relation to Linda Chen.

“The non-Chinese population around Irvine by and large is a very sophisticated one,” he said. “So they actually welcome the newcomers. They don’t see them as a threat, rather as a welcome addition to the diversity they already have here.”

The Center for Demographic Research at Cal State Fullerton estimated that in 1995, 19.3% of Irvine’s 121,867 residents were of Asian ancestry, up from 17.9% in 1990 and 7.7% in 1980. In 1995, the majority--69%--were white, with Latinos accounting for 8% and blacks 2.5%.

The most recent breakdown of Irvine’s Asian-roots population, in the 1990 U.S. Census, found that nearly one-third were of Chinese descent, followed by Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino. However, Asian American studies experts at UCI cautioned that those ratios have probably shifted substantially.

The demographic changes in Irvine are part of a countywide trend toward greater diversity, said Rusty Kennedy, director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

Kennedy said the growing Chinese community in Irvine does not seem to have produced overt racial tension so far. Inter-ethnic conflict often occurs when change is rapid and a minority group reaches a “critical mass” of about 20% or more, he said--about the level that Irvine’s Asian American community is just attaining. “That’s when issues of competition, resentment and envy start to grow. If measures aren’t taken up front, then you’ll definitely suffer the consequences.

“At this point, Irvine is probably ripe for some good proactive work,” he said. “It’s a diverse city that has less socioeconomic diversity, so maybe the levels of [ethnic] diversity are easier to handle.” The commission has sponsored workshops at schools throughout the county, including several in Irvine, to improve communication and understanding among cultures.

Manicured lawns, quiet cul-de-sacs and low crime rates have held a strong appeal for immigrants who grew up in congested urban landscapes such as those in Taiwan, a small island republic of 21 million.

The same factors attracted thousands of Taiwanese immigrants to Monterey Park and other suburban settlements in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1970s and ‘80s, Yung Chen said. But the similarities end there.

While Monterey Park’s economic and cultural life became dominated by Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans after a painful transition, Irvine is likely to retain a diverse ethnic mix, Chen said. One indication: People of many ethnic groups continue buying homes in Irvine in large numbers.

There are other important differences that have to do with Irvine’s basic economic structure. A suburban enclave of primarily well-to-do, highly educated residents, the city has little working-class presence, whereas Monterey Park encompasses all economic and social groups.

Tensions in Monterey Park between more prosperous Chinese immigrants and longtime working-class residents had as much to do with class as ethnicity, Chen said.

In contrast, Chinese newcomers to Irvine fit neatly into the existing economy. And although the majority of people of Chinese descent living in Irvine are foreign-born, many have lived elsewhere for years, long enough to become acculturated and established in their careers.

May Wen is typical of that secondary wave of immigration. She and her family first moved from Taiwan to Milwaukee, where her husband studied chemical engineering on a scholarship at the University of Wisconsin. The family moved to Irvine 11 years ago after Wen’s husband was offered a job at a new high-tech firm.

“We looked around the area and we liked Irvine a lot,” said Wen, now president of the South Coast Chinese Cultural Assn. “Nationwide, Irvine has a very good reputation as a safe city. The other reason is the school system is good, and Chinese really care about their children’s education.”

Wen has one daughter at Cal State Fullerton. A younger daughter is a senior at Woodbridge High School, where she plays volleyball and studies piano while pulling in top grades.

Irvine’s schools are invariably mentioned as a major draw, if not the only draw.

“University High School is really the main reason,” said Chen, the UCI professor, naming an Irvine school with one of the highest rates for placing graduates into the University of California system. Nearly 40% of students at the high school are of Asian descent, mostly Chinese.

“I have friends, a couple who bought a house here, and when I asked why, they said that ‘Uni’ High is very good,” Chen said. “But they don’t have a child yet. So you can see how important it is.”

UCI is also a magnet, in part because of its strengths in science and engineering and the 7-year-old Asian Studies Department. This year, 57% of UCI undergraduates are of Asian descent, with Chinese making up the largest share, according to enrollment figures.

But the public schools are what draw families south from Monterey Park and east all the way from Hong Kong. Not only are they among the highest-scoring schools in California, they are also more accessible and less demanding than many in China and Taiwan, where students compete through placement tests for spots in high school and even middle school.

“If you don’t get into a good high school [in those countries], forget it. There’s no future,” said Chen of UCI. “It is very competitive. So when they come here, whatever pressure they have is, relatively speaking, nothing.”

Linda Chen’s oldest son, Andy, recalled his entry into the Irvine school system at the age of 15. “Math and science were easy,” said Andy Chen, now 22 and a civil engineering student at UCI. “Most of the stuff they studied in high school I already learned in elementary school. Algebra and pre-calculus, we learned that in middle school. So for me, it was a breeze. I never got below an A in math.”

English and history were another matter, he said. He struggled with the language for years after his arrival. But he had help with that, as many Chinese immigrant children do. “At first, I had a tutor seven days a week for two hours a day, just to study English,” he said.

The value of education was so great in his family that his parents agreed to live apart--his mother in Irvine, his father running an import business in Taiwan--until the children finished college. With many other families similarly stressing education, the cumulative effect has been a raising of the bar at Irvine’s public schools.

“There’s a very high value in the home placed on education, so the vast majority of those students study very hard and devote a lot of time to their studies,” said Greg Kops, principal of Woodbridge High, where about one-fifth of students have Asian ancestry. “But to say our standards have gone up because of the Chinese is too simplistic. They have added to the increasing demand for rigor in the classroom, but so have families from New Jersey and South Africa. The socioeconomic backgrounds of most people who come here are similar. They have been in good schools, they’re probably from the upper levels of society. They are doer-type people, and they have high expectations for their children.”

The growth of Irvine’s Chinese American community parallels that of other new suburban Asian magnets, such as San Jose and Flushing, N.Y., said Chen of UCI. In fact, Asian communities on both U.S. coasts are growing fast, although in concentrated areas.

The phenomenon can be traced to the 1965 liberalization of U.S. immigration laws that had restricted Asian immigration to 2,000 people a year, said John Liu, a UCI social sciences professor.

At the same time, changes in the U.S. economy created a tremendous demand for medical personnel and engineers. Suddenly, Asia became a major supplier of high-skilled workers, many of whom were drawn to jobs in Southern California.

“Before Nixon went to China, the quota [for engineers and other high-skilled workers] was mainly from Taiwan,” Liu said. “The first wave of immigration created a large Taiwanese population, with the San Gabriel Valley being one magnet. . . . Then, in a second wave, came immigrants from mainland China.”

Orange County’s ethnic Chinese population grew from slightly more than 100 in 1950 to more than 41,000 in 1990, said Chen of UCI, citing census figures. “Since then, the number has kept growing very fast, and Irvine is the center of that community,” he said.

Asian immigrants have been part of Irvine almost from the planned community’s beginning. The Chinese school, for example, dates to 1975. But it has seen an explosion of growth in the last five years, said Principal Shiyun Chung.

Immigration from Taiwan and China remains strong--accounting for nearly 7% of all legal immigration to Orange County in the 1990s. Vietnamese immigrants still account for the largest share of legal immigration--34%--and the 1990 census showed the Vietnamese population to be nearly twice as large as the Chinese.

“The Asians who came to Irvine and south Orange County in general came to the United States educated and well-trained,” said Liu of UCI. “They were able to establish an economic foothold, and that enabled them to buy houses and provide good educations for their children.

“It takes a generation to establish itself in this country,” he said, “and that’s what you’re seeing right now.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Asian Ranks

Irvine’s Chinese population is the dominant Asian group in the city, whereas countywide Vietnamese predominate.
Source: U.S. Census, 1990