TRAFFICKING

Indian Women Sue Berkeley Landlord for Bringing Them to U.S. Illegally

Nine Indian women and the parents of another sued a Berkeley landlord for allegedly smuggling them into the country and forcing them to have sex and provide cheap labor.

The class-action lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages was filed Oct. 23 in Alameda County Superior Court against Lakireddy Bali Reddy and his family.

Reddy is serving eight years in prison for smuggling the women and having sex with them, but the plaintiffs estimate he has $70 million in property and business holdings.

“This will be the model for future litigation and sends a message to traffickers that we will find you, we will catch you and we will dismantle your empires,” said Michael Rubin, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

Attorney Paul Wolf, who is representing Prasad Lakireddy, Reddy’s son, accused the plaintiffs of trying to obstruct his client’s ability to get a fair trial. Lakireddy was charged with immigration fraud after one of two teenage girls he allegedly brought illegally into the United States died in 1999 of carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping in one of Reddy’s apartments in Berkeley.

The surviving sister told police Reddy had sex with them and used them for cheap labor.

Lakireddy also was named in the civil suit.

The Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Task Force, a coalition of social, legal and immigrant service groups, was formed to help the Reddy victims.

“The case has provided a tremendous learning experience,” Sonya Pelia, president of Maitri, a San Jose group that provides shelter and legal help for South Asian victims of domestic violence told the San Jose Mercury News.

Rubin said the women did not want to be interviewed because they fear retaliation. Pelia said that in exchange for their cooperation with law enforcement investigators, the women will be able to seek legal immigration status in the United States.

— The Associated Press

HATE CRIMES

Anti-Muslim Leaflets in Hawai‘i Probed as Hate Crime

Federal authorities and police are investigating the dropping of hundreds of anti-Muslim leaflets in the yard of a Honolulu Islamic center as a hate crime, the FBI said last week.

The leaflets were thrown into the fenced yard of the mosque of the Muslim Association of Hawai‘i around 8 a.m. on Oct. 21, said Daniel Dzwilewski, special agent in charge at the bureau’s Honolulu division.

“We’re looking into it right now,” he said. “We do not tolerate acts of religious discrimination or violence or hate crimes like this.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C.-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said the leaflets read in part: “During the war on terrorism, the vigilant, patriotic residents of Hawai‘i will be keeping an eye on our Muslim ‘friends’ ... Every curry fund-raiser will be checked to ensure that funds are not being funneled to support terrorist groups. Anyone found in violation will be strapped with explosives and shipped to Iraq.”

There are about 3,000 Muslims in Hawai‘i, the Council said.

Dzwilewski said the leaflets were the first such anti-Muslim act in Hawai'i.

— B.J. Reyes, A.P.

OBITUARY

Harry H.L. Kitano: Illuminator of Race Relations

UCLA Professor Emeritus Harry H.L. Kitano, one of the world’s leading authorities on race and ethnic relations, particularly as they related to the contemporary Japanese American and Asian Pacific American experiences, passed away on Oct. 19 in Los Angeles. He was 76 years old.

Born in San Francisco, Kitano grew up in the city’s Chinatown and attended Galileo High School. The bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, had a profound and everlasting impact on Kitano. His father was picked up soon afterwards by the FBI. Kitano and other members of his family were ordered to leave their home, and were transferred to the Santa Anita race tracks in Arcadia, California, where they lived in a horse stall for six months, and then to the Topaz concentration camp in Utah, where they remained from 1942-1945.

According to the Asian American Almanac (1995), “After his release from Topaz, Kitano traveled to Milwaukee and worked briefly as a farmhand. Although the war was over, lingering racial hostility towards Japanese Americans worried Kitano, so he changed his name to Harry Lee. He played trombone with several jazz bands in Minnesota, where he had the chance to work with black musicians. It was an eye-opening experience for him.”

Kitano returned to California in 1946, and subsequently received his B.A. in 1948, his masters of social work in 1951, and his Ph.D. in Psychology and Education in 1958, all from UC Berkeley.

Kitano then headed to Los Angeles, where he spent his entire professorial career, from 1958 until his retirement in 1995, at UCLA as a faculty member in the departments of Social Welfare and Sociology. Twice serving as the acting director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center—the nation’s largest and most comprehensive program of its kind—he was an active member of the Center’s Faculty Advisory Committee even during his retirement years.

The author of over 150 books, articles, and reports spanning over four decades, Professor Kitano was a pioneer in the social scientific approach to understanding the contemporary Japanese American population, and in providing theoretical frameworks for understanding persistent and new patterns of racial and ethnic conflict, cooperation and interactions.

At the time of his passing, Kitano was working with his UCLA colleague, Professor Diane de Anda, on the sixth edition of his highly popular and influential book, Race Relations, which was first published in 1974, and has been used in college classrooms across the nation.

“Harry Kitano was one of a the most influential and natural teachers at UCLA,” said Professor James Lubben, chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Asian American Studies Center. “For more than 30 years, students as well as faculty colleagues sought his sage advice, often delivered with a dose of wit and humor. He freely offered his strong shoulders upon which many social workers and Asian American scholars could seek a more civil society for all.”

Kitano is survived by his wife, Lynn; children Keith, Kimberly (David Roe), Kraig, Kerrily, and Christine; grandson Conor Hogan; and sisters Kiyoko Yamashita, Sadako Kawaguchi, Chizuko Iiyama and Tamio Kitano.

A public tribute celebrating Professor Kitano’s extraordinary life and work in academia and in other arenas will be held on Dec. 14 at the UCLA Faculty Center.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that any donations be made to: the “Harry Kitano Scholarship Endowment/UCLA Foundation.” For more information, please contact Don Nakanishi, Director, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 310-825-2974, or dtn@ucla.edu.

–UCLA Asian American Studies Center