Utoro Eviction

Your editorial “An Eviction Unworthy of the Japanese” on Aug. 14 reminds me of the saying, “Before you criticize the splinter in someone else’s eye, take care of the two-by-four in your own eye.”

This editorial condemns the Japanese for denying Japanese citizenship to Koreans living in Japan, and evicting them from their land. This eviction involves 380 residents of the village of Utoro.

My mother, who was born in the United States, spent her whole life in the U.S., never committed a single crime in her life, was stripped of her American citizenship. It is difficult to believe, but thousands of American women were stripped of their American citizenship when they married non-American men. Her life savings were taken away, and many Americans of Japanese ancestry were at gunpoint forced to leave their land and homes. Eventually my parents recovered their savings after over 25 years of delay at less than five cents on the dollar.

What happened to the Koreans is unfortunate, but before you go about bashing the Japanese, let’s look at the mirror.

ROY H. TODOROKI

Montebello