The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) of Arizona, along with several Asian Pacific Islander organizations sent a letter on April 9 to Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey, against the anti-Asian violence across the nation. In Arizona a Filipino American man Juanito Falcon was attacked and killed in Phoenix in February. There have been a number of verbal attacks/phone calls in Tucson in 2020 at a Chinese church downtown, to the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center on River Rd., and at a Chinese woman patron at a Fry’s supermarket out east. This COVID-19 pandemic has been blamed upon the so-called “Chinese virus”.
Here’s a copy of the letter sent by the JACL, signed on by our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition (of which I am a Council member/Editor) and the Pan Asian Community Alliance on S. Craycroft Rd. in Tucson.
Another Asian American group, the Asian Corporate and Entrepreneur Leaders (ACEL) of Tempe also initiated a similar letter to Governor Ducey, which was sent on April 8, 2021. Copy of that letter is below the JACL one, signed by numerous organizations and businesses in Arizona and elsewhere. Our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition also signed that letter.
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No response from AZ Governor Doug Ducey to either letter from JACL-AZ or ACEL, and here is it May, Asian Pacific American Heritage month. He could of at least acknowledged receipt of the letters, and just written a cordial response to his constituents.
If you’re wondering if there has been any response by Arizona Governor Ducey to these letters, the word I get from JACL-AZ is “none”. Will check will Jason Wong at ACEL as well. But Governor Ducey did this week sign into law legislation (SB 1800) marking January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties & the Constitution, for the noted civic rights leader, one of a few who legally challenged the WWII internment of Japanese Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States