NEW YORK: Eighteen-year-old Chen Tsu was waiting on a Brooklyn subway platform after school when four high school classmates approached him and demanded cash. He showed them his empty pockets, but they attacked him anyway, taking turns pummelling his face.

He was scared and injured bruised and swollen for several days but hardly surprised.

At his school, Lafayette High in Brooklyn, Chinese immigrant students like him are harassed and bullied so routinely that school officials in June agreed to a Department of Justice consent decree to curb alleged "severe and pervasive harassment directed at Asian-American students by their classmates." Since then, the Justice Department credits Lafayette officials with addressing the problem but the case is far from isolated.

Nationwide, Asian students say they are often beaten, threatened and called ethnic slurs by other young people, and school safety data suggest that the problem may be worsening.

Youth advocates say these Asian teens, stereotyped as high-achieving students who rarely fight back, have for years borne the brunt of ethnic tension as Asian communities expand and neighbourhoods become more racially diverse.

In the last five years, Census data show, Asians mostly Chinese have grown from 5 per cent to nearly 10 per cent of Brooklyn residents. In the Bensonhurst neighbourhood, historically home to Italian and Jewish families, more than 20 per cent of residents now are Asian.

Those changes have escalated ethnic tension on campuses such as Lafayette High, according to Khin Mai Aung, staff attorney at the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is advocating for Lafayette students.

Brooklyn's changes mirror Asian growth nationally. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders grew from 3.7 million to nearly 12 million. After Latinos, Asians are the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group.

Some lawmakers have responded. The New York City Council, after hearing hours of testimony from Asian youth, last year passed a bill to track bullying and train educators on prevention.

Also last year, California Assemblywoman Judy Chu won passage of a new law to allow hate crimes victims more time up to three years to file civil suits; the bill was inspired by a 2003 San Francisco incident in which five Asian teens were attacked by a mob of youth.

(China Daily 11/16/2005 page7)