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Xenophobia and 'Made in the U.S.A.'? This all sounds dangerously familiar
By Lynda Lin, Assistant Editor
Pacific Citizen
Published September 7, 2007
The Azine has established a new exchange relationship
with Pacific Citizen, Newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League.
This is the first article that we are re-posting.
A poisonous Dora the Explorer. A lead-laden SpongeBob SquarePants address
book. Even Thomas the Train's friendly face turned sinister. Almost overnight,
these beloved children's characters changed into nightmarish predators
with tainted exteriors and ubiquitous "Made in China" labels.
This was the summer of product recalls and it seemed no one was safe -
not you, your kids or your pets.
Like most Americans, Stefania Pomponi Butler couldn't ignore the unsettling news about dangerous China-made products. The Silicon Valley, Calif. mother of two did not have any of the recalled toys in her home, but she decided to toss out the kids' China-made plastic dishware and replace it with glass items made in a different country.
In April, after a China-made wheat gluten identified in pet food caused
the deaths of at least a dozen U.S. pet cats and dogs, Butler tossed out
a bag of frozen edamame from China.
"Yes, I have to admit we bought into the hysteria a bit," she
said. "I now won't buy any foods prepared and packaged in China."
Butler isn't alone. Eighty-two percent of Americans polled by Zogby International in August said they are concerned about purchasing goods from China and over 60 percent of American consumers said they would swear off Chinese goods.
The country known as the land of the sleeping dragon has long been criticized
for its political and human rights related issues, but the barrage of
news about tainted products has created a more malicious kind of backlash
- and the epicenter is on the internet.
Over a dozen Web sites are dedicated to boycotting not only Chinese goods,
but relations with China itself, including Boycott-China.com, a bare site
which hawks items like "Boycott China" license plate frames.
For some Asian Pacific Americans, the growing anti-Chinese sentiment is
eerily reminiscent of another era in American history involving another
vilified Asian country and the blood of a man named Vincent Chin.
