What does the world look like as reported on the pages of California's growing ethnic newspapers? PNS monitors the Chinese-, Spanish-, Vietnamese-, Japanese-, Korean-, Arabic-language news media as well as English-language newcomer and native-born ethnic press published and/or distributed widely in California. "Gleanings from the Ethnic Media" is a regular weekly column compiled by Emil Guillermo, host of "NCM: New California Media TV" (seen on PBS station KCSM-TV60 in the Bay Area); assisted by Pacific News Service and the NCM Network. Just as the alternative news media connected the disaffected populations in the 1960s, so in the 1990s the ethnic media connects the new ethnic majority communities of California -- to one another and to the larger public forum.

GREEN CARDS, RED LIGHT: Nearly a million foreign nationals are waiting for their green card applications to be processed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Philippine News (San Francisco) reports. More than 60,000 applicants who have appealed denials face removal from the country and separation from family. The fear is that a significant number may lose patience and "vanish in the forest of unlawful stay, hoping to remain unnoticed in the anonymous underworld."

ZHU PREVAILS: "Zhu Rongji uses active defense to dissolve World Trade Organization China Membership Opponents," heralded the Sing Tao Daily (San Francisco/Hong Kong) as it praised the recent visit of the Chinese premier.

China may have been turned down for WTO membership during the visit, but there's still a positive impression of the trip -- especially with strong Clinton administration support for China's bid for WTO admission.

The account of Zhu's Washington visit also highlighted his candor. Asked about recent charges of spying, he said Americans should not underestimate Chinese intelligence.

Sing Tao concluded, "Not only did Zhu Rongji's political style stymie the China-bashers but he made Hong Kong people feel more confident about China's policies."

POLITICAL PRISONERS -- STILL: At least 100 political prisoners continue to languish in Vietnamese jails, Dr. Nguyen Dang Que reports in Thoi Bao (San Jose, Ca.). A former political prisoner himself, Nguyen says many are beaten, mentally tortured and deprived of food. Among the prisoners are Catholic and Protestant clergy, as well as Buddhist monks, according to Nguyen, who accuses the government of deliberate cruelty for jailing these prisoners of conscience with real criminals who are often violent.

Que was imprisoned in 1979 for a ten year stretch and released only when Amnesty International pressed for his freedom. He then formed an organization to fight for human rights, and was jailed again for a 20 year term. Freed recently, he was given permission to leave Vietnam but has chosen to stay in his country.

ULTRA-RIGHT FEAR: Asia is buzzing about the victory of Japanese ultra-rightist Ishihara Shinataro in recent Tokyo prefecture elections. "Anti-Chinese," and "anti-American," is how the World Journal (San Francisco/Taiwan) labels Ishihara, despite his own pronouncements that he is anti-Communist and pro-Taiwan. The fear is that Ishihara may revive feelings for a previous era when Taiwan was a colony of imperial Japan.

Mainland Chinese officials are also blasting Ishihara's victory, according to the China Press (San Francisco). Yuxi of the Beijing Foreign Office called it "an attack on Chinese sensitivities and damaging to Sino-Japanese relations." The official newspaper, the People's Daily, weighed in with an even stronger warning that Ishihara's election could undo several decades of improving relations between the two countries.

INDO INCOME: Indonesian papers report that Chinese-Indonesians have sent US$80 billion out of the country, according to the World Journal (San Francisco/Taiwan), and some 25,000 Chinese-Indonesian families who play a major role in Indonesia's economy have fled. A spokesperson for the Golkar, the party in power, said those who fled were afraid that as the June presidential election approaches they could come under legal duress or, worse, be victims of new mob action.

NEW CRACK IN TOWN: Newly appointed Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is looking at a birth control program aimed at addicted women and men in county jails called C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity), reports the Final Call (Chicago). The program offers $200 cash to participants who agree to use short term or permanent birth control procedures. Local activists are outraged with the proposed project, claiming it would unfairly affect mostly men and women of color.

BEATING GENTRIFICATION: Decrying gentrification because it is eliminating black neighborhoods, the San Francisco Bay View editorialized on preserving the Bay View-Hunters Point district as a distinctive African American neighborhood. "This neighborhood, the most stable in the City, the heartland of Black San Francisco, has been our home so long that our roots run deep and are so intertwined that when gentrification forces just one of us to leave, it tears at all of us.

"To stop gentrification... we must have the good jobs that thriving African American businesses could create. Yet our Black businesses still have no access to capital, public or private -- no bank loans, no City loans."