Arcuri Defended Against Racism Charge

I get fed up, reading letters such as Raymond Tam’s, charging Frank Arcuri with racist ideas. With Tam’s exaggerations and falsehoods (he says) that Arcuri does not want to encourage immigrants to speak English and (wants) to deny freedom of speech to those that do not use perfect English. On the contrary, very few people speak perfect English, including Arcuri and the undersigned, and we do applaud those who have made an attempt to learn the language of this country.

I charge Tam with being a racist and with character assassination, by comparing Frank Arcuri with Adolf Hitler. What a low, contemptible statement. This appears to be typical of Arcuri’s opposition. If they cannot think of anything else to say, they yell “racist.” According to Tam and the Monterey Park City Council’s Lily Chen, Rudy Peralta and G. Monty Manibog, Nathan Hale would be considered a racist. I would urge them to drop the word from their vocabulary when referring to anything that disagrees with them, thus attempting to deny the freedom of speech that they profess to advocate.

With the Chinese numbering some 40% of Monterey Park’s population, and one-half of those illegal aliens, according to a statement by an INS official, why is it racial and a denial of free speech to urge the use of English? Or has that part of the law requiring reading and writing English for citizenship been repealed?

C. E. Sharp

MONTEREY PARK