"Move" was painted on her home in 4-foot-tall letters. Neighbors also egged her car and said, "Go back to Iran."

But when McMahon tried to report the hate crimes, officers "would reclassify it as a neighborhood dispute and never do anything," said McMahon, 61, who is Malaysian, not Iranian.

Although the Orange County Sheriff's Department maintains they took all of McMahon's complaints seriously, the case was mentioned during a Santa Ana hearing Wednesday as an example of why bigotry often goes unreported.

The hearing was the seventh of 21 being held around the state by the Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes, which is studying how to improve hate-crime reporting. One civil-rights worker estimated half of all hate crimes go unreported.

"We have massive underreporting in Orange County," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

"The Sheriff's Department and the police departments won't dig into it," added Barabara Muirhead, representing Orange County gays and lesbians. "(We have to) go out on (people's) turf, and they'll tell you (what's happening)."

More than half of the 50 people attending the hearing were local and state police and prosecutors, including three police chiefs. The hearings are sponsored by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

"Law enforcement in my 30 years has come a long ways," said Laguna Beach Police ChiefJim Spreine. "We have to reach out."

Reasons why hate-crime victims stay silent varied, speakers said. Immigrants fear deportation or come from nations where law enforcement is feared. Some gays fear their homosexuality will become public. Victims sometimes fear retaliation or don't know what constitutes a hate crime.

Ken Inouye, speaking on behalf of a regional Japanese American Citizen's League, advocated public education to teach victims what a hate crime is and what resources are available to help them. Others advocated greater sensitivity training for police and pressuring schools to document crimes.

"People will step forward if given the opportunity," Inouye said.