The following is a message that I would like you to share with members of the University Senate.

Dear Peter Gilkey, the president of the Senate:

Please permit me say something about WRC from a rather different angle, as an immigrant from China.

I see the purpose of the WRC as protecting certain interest groups (against the interests of others). I fail to see any high moral grounds for joining the WRC. In particular, as a faculty member from Asia, I actually find the demand that UO join the WRC was rather offensive. I certainly do not feel that by joining the WRC the UO will somehow help some third world workers. In fact, I think it will have a rather negative effect. I do not want to give a lenthy argument here; it suffices to say the following. I myself worked for $9-11 monthly salary for more than three years in Asia. If any people in Eugene can speak for those poor Asian workers, I should be among them. At the time, I was grateful for the opportunity afforded by such work, meager as it might appear to someone from a rich industrialized country. I would not have wanted to have my opportunities infringed and my right to choose to survive denied by outside elements acting from questionable, self-interested motivations.

Some speeches I have heard suggested that I could not even entirely rule out elements of racial motivation here in the WRC campaign. I hope this is not the case. But I was offended by the fact that the University for which I have worked for the last six years might be involved, however inadvertently, in something like this.

Sincerely yours,

Huaxin Lin Mathematics