A Letter to Paramount Pictures,

We, the Japanese Association of Southern California, hereby declare our united opposition to the portrayal of "Hisuru Tori" as Japanese in your upcoming film, The Cheat. We view Tori as not only an inaccurate representation of Japanese-Americans, but also as an offensive insult our heritage and culture. In characterizing him as an evil, predatory, greedy villain, you also characterize all Japanese men in this way, since Tori is both the only antagonist and the only non-white person in the film. Moreover, we find your depiction of Tori as sexually licentious to be exceptionally improper. Our men are, by custom, courteous and respectful toward all women, and your film completely denigrates this crucial aspect of Japanese culture. In short, your portrayal of Tori is ignorant and disrespectful of Japanese-Americans, and we are deeply against the perpetuation of such a portrayal.

Therefore, we demand that Paramount Pictures remove and erase all association between the Japanese ethnicity and the character of Hisuru Tori. If our demand is not met, we will actively and unceasingly hold protests on your grounds until our goal has been accomplished.

Signed,
The Japanese Association of Southern California

Questions:
1. How does the condition of Asian women in urban cities during the nineteenth/eighteenth century compare to the condition of African American women in urban cities after the Great Migration? Did the two groups ever interact?
2. According to Robert G. Lee, Hinton Helper once remarked that "one Chinaman looks almost exactly like another, but very unlike any body else." What is the significance of the white majority's tendency to label non-white groups, specifically Asians, blacks, and Latinos, as all looking "the same" within their respective groups? Were whites perceived as somehow looking different within their group?