Part of what a humane society does is recognize past injustices and address them.”

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 | posts

Is “sorry” better late than never?

Last week, the California legislature apologized to the state’s Chinese-American community for racist laws barring Chinese from owning land or property, marrying whites, working in the public sector and testifying against whites in court. That was back in the mid-19th century during California’s Gold Rush. About 25,000 Chinese crossed the Pacific ocean to work as laborers in mines and to build the Transcontinental Railroad.

The story, written by editor/reporter Ling Woo Liu, of Time Asia, notes that this apology is just the latest in a number of official acts of remorse around the world:

In 2006, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a similar apology, expressing regret to Chinese Canadians for unequal taxes imposed on them in the late 19th century. Last February, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to his country’s Aborigines for racist laws of the past, including the forced separation of children from their parents. Five months later, the U.S. Congress formally apologized to black Americans for slavery and the later Jim Crow laws, which were not repealed until the 1960s. And most notably, in 1988 the U.S. government decided to pay $20,000 to each of the surviving 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in camps during World War II. Says Donald Tamaki, a San Francisco–based attorney who helped overturn wrongful WWII-era convictions of Japanese Americans: ”Part of what a humane society does is recognize past injustices and address them.”

Liu ends her piece by commenting on how times have changed. These days, there’s a rush to bring Chinese tourists to California and and the Governator is working hard to foster business and trade with the PRC.

In 2005, Schwarzenegger toured China for six days to promote California’s produce, technology and raw materials. China is now California’s fourth largest export market, after Mexico, Canada and Japan. In 2008 California exported $10.9 billion worth of goods to China, up 40% since 2005.

Read the entire story here.  (Thanks to Christal, for the link!)

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