BOSTON GLOBE
Copyright Globe Newspaper Company 1994
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994
PAGE:  1
EDITION: THIRD
SECTION: CITY WEEKLY
LENGTH: MEDIUM
SOURCE: By Sandy Coleman, Globe Staff
MEMO: CITY WEEKLY

A PLACE TO TURN FOR VICTIMS OF HATE

Last week was a busy week for hate.

By 11 a.m. on Monday, Greg Chen, director of the SafetyNet Hate
Violence Prevention Program, already had been to court to help a
Vietnamese family allegedly beaten by a large group of white men
and was upstairs in a staff meeting discussing another case in
which two Asian men were attacked with hockey sticks in South
Boston.

During the meeting, Chen periodically ran downstairs to answer
phone calls from people who wanted to talk about the South
Boston case, the second incident of its kind in the neighborhood
this month.

''We're talking about that right now,'' Chen told a caller
before racing upstairs to finish his meeting.

Settling down at a table downstairs in his sparse office on
Kneeland Street, Chen began to talk about SafetyNet, which he
founded to provide advocacy and community support for Asians who
are victims of hate crimes.

''You've come at a good time and a bad time,'' he said. It was a
good time to see why the newest soldier on the battlefield is
necessary, and a bad time because the necessity is increasingly
apparent.

Last week, two Asian men were attacked by 10 to 12 white men in
South Boston. An off-duty police officer saw the attack and
ordered the men to stop. The men continued, however, until the
officer fired shots in the air.

On June 5, three Asian men were attacked by 10 to 15 white men
in South Boston.

On April 30, a Vietnamese family said they were attacked and
beaten with a bat and a hockey stick outside their Brighton home
by several white neighbors, according to a SafetyNet report. It
began when one of the white neighbors bumped into the Vietnamese
family's parked car and then began yelling racial slurs. The
situation escalated into a fight that sent three members of the
Vietnamese family to the hospital.

When police came, members of the Vietnamese family were unable
to communicate in English, the neighbors blamed the Vietnamese
for the incident, and police ended up charging both sides with
assault and battery with a deadly weapon, said Chen, noting a
police report that indicates the neighbors have continued to
threaten to kill the Vietnamese family. The case is now in
Brighton District Court.

And in February, at a Brighton health clinic, an elderly
Cambodian woman reported that several white teen-agers spit in
her face and hit her with glass bottles. They yelled racial
epithets, taunted her and dared her to call the police.

According to recent Boston police figures, the number of
reported hate crimes against Asians rose from six in 1978 to a
high of 45 in 1985 and then dipped again last year to 22. Chen
said that although Boston police figures indicate that hate
crimes against Asians are down from the 1985 high, that does not
necessarily mean that the crimes are decreasing. Frequently, he
said, Asian victims are reluctant to report such crimes.

According to statistics gathered statewide from participating
police departments and compiled by the Criminal Histories
Systems Board, 11.4 percent of the 472 crimes reported in 1992
were motivated by anti-Asian sentiments.

In March, SafetyNet, which mainly had been dealing in
education and outreach, launched a victim assistance hotline
and began to do victim advocacy work. The organization has
handled seven cases since then.

''I'm surprised I got that many,'' said Chen, again stating that
many*Asian* victims do not report hate crimes.  They are
reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons, he said, from
cultural beliefs to language barriers.

Chen, a Harvard graduate, began to research starting  SafetyNet
in November 1992. In a survey of 80 area organizations, he found
no groups directly focusing on tracking, reporting and
preventing such crimes against Asians.

Chen's organization, which employs two part-time interns and
nine volunteers, is sponsored by the Asian American Resource
Workshop. The workshop's director, Michael Liu, SafetyNet is a
welcome addition to the war on hate crimes.

''The rate of racial violence has been increasing in the past
few years, and even though the Boston area has been less intense
we've been seeing signs that things are getting worse,'' he
said. ''We are aware that there is strong anti-immigrant feeling
throughout the country, so we feel it's important that the
community be able to respond to hate crimes. Now, we have more
capacity to do things.''

Paul Watanabe, a codirector at the new Institute
for*Asian*American Studies at UMass-Boston, echoes Liu's
assessment of the need for SafetyNet. He also credits Chen with
being highly motivated. Indeed, since its official start in
April 1993, SafetyNet has trained 200 professionals in the
community service field to help recognize hate crimes and assist
victims.

As Chen explains it, if SafetyNet is to act as a liaison between
victims and the criminal justice system, he must make members of
the*Asian*community aware of their rights, create an environment
of intolerence for hate crimes and push law enforcement
officials to rigorously investigate and prosecute cases.

It is also critical, Chen said, to use the Police Department's
bilingual officers efficiently. According to Bob O'Toole, the
department's director of informational services, there are 22
police officers of Chinese ancestry who speak Chinese and
another six being trained at the police academy. There also is a
Vietnamese liaison in Dorchester.

O'Toole concedes that with any influx of immigrants, there is
potential for a language barrier. However, he said, there are
always ways to communicate.

Chen agreed, but said that the Brighton case points out the need
for SafetyNet to assist in that process. At first, he said,
members of the Vietnamese family were willing to shake hands and
walk away. They had realized they had been beaten, Chen said,
and that  they had been discriminated against. ''But,'' he said,
''they didn't expect the courts or the police would do anything
about it. . . . That's exactly one of the roles we play.''