Letters for Monday, February 25, 2008

• Bridge work lauded

• Vietnam emboldened terrorists

• Narrow views of immigration

Bridge work lauded

So after almost 30 years of gross negligence by many planning departments, planning directors and lack of enforcement by our elected officials, the bridge connecting the two major Eastside shopping centers has finally been installed and will be opened to the public by the end of March (“30-year bridge battle nears end,” A1, Feb. 23).

As Councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho said, many people deserve credit for pushing the project to completion but two people, Tracey Murakami and Tony Allen, deserve a good part of that credit for their hard work and effort at getting hundreds of signatures to stop this illegality from continuing.

And, for me, the person who really got this project to finality was Councilwoman Iseri-Carvalho. Her hours of work putting together a chronology of what has transpired over 29-plus years showing the lack of anyone in authority enforcing the law, and vividly pointing out that civil as well as criminal laws have been violated. Her presentation before the public and the other six council members was brilliant.

Bravo, Tracey, Tony and particularly, Shaylene for making happen what should have happened years ago.

Glenn Mickens

Kapa‘a

Vietnam emboldened terrorists

Walter Lewis, as usual, makes excellent points in his Saturday editorial (“Focused course needed in Iraq,” A Better Kaua‘i, Feb. 23).

However, his characterization of the Vietnam war as a “failed military effort” unfortunately reinforces the liberal-left, common wisdom view of that tragic episode in our history.

The U.S. military never lost a single major battle in that conflict, including the Tet Offensive, despite Walter Cronkite’s mendacious reporting to the contrary. This is a fact that neither North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap nor Hanoi warlord Le Duc Tho would dispute.

It was the calculated decision of a Democratic Congress, in its zeal to humiliate a Watergate-wounded President Nixon, to terminate funding to enforce the Paris Peace Accords that triggered the fall of South Vietnam. What resulted was a loss of life that exceeded all the deaths that occurred during the bloody 12-year war. The killing fields of Cambodia, the “yellow rain” genocide in Laos and the re-education camps, boat people and wholesale slaughter of anti-communists in Vietnam all took place after our departure.

It was this self-inflicted humiliation that only served to embolden Islamist terrorism, which began in earnest in the 1970s. And we are paying the price to this day.

John Burns

Princeville

Narrow views of immigration

I was disappointed to note that T.L. Cameron found it necessary to include the statement “I myself have experienced legions of Hispanic illegal aliens have (sic) invading my hometown, state and country” in a letter about the tensions between Kaua‘i kama‘aina and newcomer customs (“Kaua‘i is not the only place with issues,” Letters, Feb. 24).

First of all, having been born and raised in California myself, I am astonished at the intensification of anti-Latino sentiment I have observed from afar in recent years. I have never felt that Latinos didn’t belong, somehow, in California: After all, they are the descendants of the indigenous people of what we now call “the Americas.” Lest we forget, people have been migrating throughout the area of the Southwest for many thousands of years. They didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them. My ancestors have a much shorter history in the area than theirs, and came to the continent as part of a flow — or “invasion” — of uninvited immigrants from Europe: that fact deserves acknowledgment and respect.

Moreover, statements such as Cameron’s serve to perpetuate a narrow and bigoted understanding of the reasons for increased migration across the Rio Grande. U.S. policies, such as NAFTA, have devastated the economy of the Mexican countryside, displacing millions of farmers by the flooding of Mexican markets with cheap, subsidized U.S.-grown corn. What would you do if your ability to feed your children was taken away? Would you cross a river and a desert, risking your life, as so many are doing right now? I know I would — laws be damned. I suppose it depends on how much you love your children.

I object to the use of the phrase “illegal alien” as well. It is a dehumanizing word play. How hard is it to use terms like “undocumented immigrant”? Can you spare a few extra syllables to show some respect for people caught in a desperate situation? Words matter — when we dehumanize a population through the rhetoric we use, it makes it that much easier to treat them callously. We are seeing the results of this now in the hyped-up anti-Latino policies being implemented on the continent. (Also, by the way, the word “Hispanic” obscures the Indian heritage of the people — which is why I avoid the term.)

Further, there is a difference between the migration of desperately poor people trying to survive and feed their families, and the “luxury” class of migrants: privileged folk who come to Hawai‘i, for example, to “live in paradise.” In fact, that accounts in large measure for the way that immigrants who come to Hawai‘i to work in hotels and other low-paying jobs are often viewed much more sympathetically by locals than those who come on a whim because they can afford to do so. Conflating the two issues does not help any of us understand the complex question of settlers’ relationship to Hawai‘i.

Katy Rose

Hanalei