Letters to the Editor: Will Texas’ anti-Asian legislation bring back racist housing covenants?

To the editor: Is the proposed Texas law barring property ownership by citizens of China the beginning of a return to the old restrictive covenants used to keep Jews and African Americans out of selected neighborhoods? Is this the beginning of the metamorphosis of “never again” to “never again until the next time?”

How is it that the good people of Texas continue to be led by those whose 10-gallon hats seem to cover nine gallons of bigotry, prejudice and hate, and one gallon of tolerance and brains?

Simple questions. Complicated answers.

Marshall Barth, Encino

..

To the editor: Texas Sen. Lois Kolkhorst needs to look at high-tech employment data for Texas. The Texas Economic Development Corp. says that more than 282,000 people in the state are employed in advanced manufacturing, information technology and aerospace.

And it would be safe to say that many of those workers are Asian. How do Dell, Tesla and Apple feel about the senator’s anti-Asian legislation ?

This bill may be good for an election sound-bite, but it isn’t for the real world and our American STEM workforce.

Andrew Ko, San Marino

..

To the editor: I’m disappointed but not surprised that Texas has made another decision to demean non-white Texans, in this case citizens of China. I was raised in Texas, in Austin and San Antonio, but escaped in to the South Bay in 1963.

In the 1990s I visited my mother in Texas and took her on a road trip to visit her siblings. We were near Rockport, on the Gulf Coast, when I stopped for gas at a small mom-and-pop station with a market.

When I went inside to pay, I noticed a young Asian man behind the counter. When I lived in Texas, I never saw Asian residents, but I remembered many Vietnam refugees had immigrated to the Gulf Coast after that war.

Then, when he spoke to me in that long, drawn-out East Texas accent, I was thrilled. Hope comes from that memory of a young Asian man, born in Texas, speaking like a native Texan. I will always enjoy that memory.

Betty Dunbar, Hermosa Beach