Hate Revealed
Dear Editor: I just read the lead editorial titled “A Scared New World,” (Sept. 20) written by the Managing Editor Neela Banerjee. I just want to say thank you for reporting the hate related stabbing in San Francisco SOMA district.
Like Banerjee, I’m also bothered that bystanders didn’t help, that the attackers could easily have been people I work with, and that it’s so close to home. It definitely helps that AsianWeek is saying something about it and not acting as a bystander pretending nothing is happening. Sometimes I wonder how America expects to stand up to terrorism when many of us don’t stand up to the terrorism that occurs at home.
Chenglim Ear
via email
We Orientals
Dear Asianweek: I read so many editorial articles as well as opinions from readers of your newspaper that somehow indicate an affection for Arabs, as if they are of Asian Oriental descent.
Even Indians don’t like being called Asian, and besides, they look very different than we Orientals. I ask that you refrain from connecting us with them. Since when did Asian gangsters ever hijack a plane? You’re asking for more trouble by linking us with the Arab Muslims.
Political correctness runs afoul these days, without so much as a slap on the wrist. Afghan refugees are fleeing their country in “anticipation” of a U.S. military strike to avenge the deaths of those killed. They are doing this to themselves. And America hasn’t even done anything yet. This assumption is dangerous. That’s why all those protesters are in small numbers. They are anarchists and communists against the unity of this country and the rest of the world in our time of need, and apparently they have too much time on their hands to waste in the hot sun protesting like that.
Since President Bush already said that the terrorists are going to pay for their heinous acts, why should Arabs and Arab Americans worry? They aren’t going to be detained in an internment camp like the Japanese, Italian and German Americans were during World War II. This government, this administration, is not going to toss them in jail and deport them all (though illegal immigrants should be, of course). Again, I ask that you stop linking Asians and Arabs together, as if we are the same race.
TC Nguyen
Citizens for an Unbiased Media
Voice of the Trans Folks
Dear Editor: Thank you for publishing another positive and realistic article on the lives of trans folk. It was well done. (“Living Life as a Transgender Filipina,” Sept. 20).
Not all trans folk transition in their youth. Some, like me, transition much later in life after trying to make life work with their birth gender. We get married, have kids, build a career, only to find out later in our lives that the gender issues we’ve struggled with since childhood are still emotionally and physically painful enough that the only effective way to deal with it is to transition.
Maybe it’s time to do a short on what happens to a middle-age Chinese trans woman originally from Hong Kong who was married with kids and transitioned to living as a full-time woman.
Bernice Felicia Loui
via email
Stand Up Against Racism
Dear Editor: A second wave of terrorism has been occurring in America. Bigotry and hatred have been unleashed against Americans of Arab, Islamic, South Asian and even Native American heritage, leaving those who only look or dress differently from most white Americans afraid to leave their homes.
We are a group of third-generation Japanese Americans who feel a strong desire and deep sense of obligation to speak out in support of the Muslim and Arab American communities in light of the violence and hate messages that are being directed at them.
We, and most of our Japanese American communities, know very well what it is like to be the target of such feelings and we understand the burden of carrying the lasting psychological and emotional effects of the internment. That is why we firmly declare that this must never happen again to another group of innocent people.
We Americans, who so strongly believe in freedom, justice and liberty for all, must not allow violence and discrimination to fall blindly on the Muslim and Arab American communities nor, for that matter, on anyone who looks “different” or “like the enemy.”
Let us learn from our past. We urge everyone to take some overt action to show acceptance and support for those in the Muslim and Arab American communities. What can you do?
Speak out whenever you hear or see an act of bigotry, stereotyping or hatred.
Reach out to Muslims and south, east, and western Asians in your communities; show them you understand and feel their pain.
Attend a prayer at a mosque.
Call upon your leaders in the legislature to protect the rights of Americans and immigrants.
Become the person you would want to have standing up for you if such acts were directed against you.
Sansei Legacy Project
Coordinating Council Members
Richard Tatsuo Nagaoka
Fumi Knox
Sharon Senzaki
Marion Hironaka Cowee
Kay Yatabe
Judith Kajiwara
Grace Morizawa
Correction
In “Adoption and the Long Road Ahead,” (Sept. 27), AsianWeek erroneously reported that Ken Chu and Lisa Leung both carry lupus. Rather, they both have family histories of the disease, and that was one of many factors that went into their decision to adopt. We apologize to Leung and Chu and to all of our readers, as we take seriously our mission as journalists to report facts accurately.
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