Right and Wrong
Dear Editor: In the article on smoking in bars, “Lighting Up Against the Law,” (May 10), Ethen Lieser wrote: “Warnings aside, any bar patron should be able to see what is right and wrong.” Further, Lieser provided a telephone number so that people could snitch off anyone who was smoking in a tavern.
While it may be easy to tell what is legal and what is illegal, and while it may be easy to tell that Lieser is a stooge for the anti-smoking fascists, smoking in a bar or restaurant is not wrong.
What is wrong is the baseless campaign of lies and hatred that the state of California has been waging against people who smoke. There is not one peer-reviewed scientific study that proves that “second-hand smoke” harms anyone, let alone any hard evidence. Yet, since the California Workplace Clean Air Act was passed, over a thousand full-service restaurants and bars have gone out of business. Hotel occupancy rates in San Francisco have dropped precipitously. Look at who is being damaged in the name of “protecting workers.”
Wake up and smell the stench. It is not coming from my cigarette. It is coming from Sacramento, and the stooges and snitches that are playing along with this fraud.
Mark Volovar
via e-mail
A Cappella Goes Multicultural
Dear Editor: I am writing in response to the article “Penn Masala Croons A Cappella,” (May 18) by Anhoni Patel. It was very interesting to read about developments in the a cappella world that reach beyond traditional, white, elite young people from the Northeast. I make this statement not because I dislike a cappella, to which I have been exposed. In fact, I am affiliated with a college that has four a cappella groups and, for the most part, I find them to be quite talented and enjoyable. However, despite my feelings, it is very encouraging to see the art form of a cappella becoming more inclusive and multicultural.
Patel’s article did a superb job at highlighting not only Penn Masala’s uniqueness within this musical form, but also their talented musicians and entertainers. Furthermore, I found interesting how the members of Penn Masala integrated their life experiences as both South Asians and Americans into their performances. I have not seen Penn Masala perform, but after reading Patel’s article, I look forward to having them come to my corner of the world and having the opportunity to experience one of their performances.
Kudos to Patel for a well-written and informative article.
Joe Barber
Hartford, Connecticut
The Other Pearl Harbor
Dear Editor: I, like many Japanese Americans, await the release of the film Pearl Harbor, with some anxiety and trepidation. Although Hollywood has promised a more sensitive treatment of the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor, the thought of another Japan-versus-America movie threatens to re-open old wounds and ignite already existing anti-Japanese and -Asian sentiments, particularly in light of a recent poll reporting that anti-Asian prejudice is at an all-time high.
I first learned of the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor in my third-grade history class. Afterward, on the school yard, a boy named George called me a “Jap” and started a fight with me because “my parents had bombed Pearl Harbor.” That evening, I asked my mother if she had anything to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She explained to me that she was third-generation American and had as little to do with Pearl Harbor as George’s German American parents had to do with Hitler’s reign of terror.
What I didn’t realize at that age is that my parents had paid a terrible price for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Within months of December 1941, my mother, father and their families, along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans, were given 48 hours to vacate their homes, close their businesses and churches, get rid of all their possessions and report to assembly centers. From there, they were shipped off to spend the next four years in barbed-wire internment camps in Rohwer, Arkansas and Hila River, Arizona. Even though neither my mother nor father had ever been to Japan, they suffered the wrath of America’s anger.
The internment took a great toll upon Japanese American culture. In camp, parents did not teach their children Japanese language, customs or religion in fear that they might be accused of being Japanese nationalists. Even with their American citizenship, they were forced to submit to loyalty oaths to prove their allegiance to America. For some, proving their loyalty became an obsession. Despite objections from their distressed families, many young Japanese American men enlisted in the U.S. army, fighting in segregated battalions, which later became the most decorated units in history.
After they were released from the camps, Japanese Americans faced poverty and a country full of hostility and racism. My grandparents and parents had to rebuild their lives, working in menial jobs to support their family. It took them decades to reach a point where they could live a relatively normal life. But they were never able to fully recover from the social and economic devastation that they experienced during their internment.
Pearl Harbor was a horrible tragedy for the many hundreds of soldiers and innocent people and children who were killed and maimed. This country should never forget the sacrifices of those who lost their lives in the attack. However, it must also not be forgotten that there was another side to Pearl Harbor that forever changed the destiny of the Japanese American community. Pearl Harbor must be remembered as a day of infamy for all Americans — including Japanese Americans.
Jeff Adachi
San Francisco
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