India
16 June 1945

Senate Committee on Immigration,
Washington, D.C.

Gentlemen:
For the first time in my life I feel compelled, as an American citizen, to write to your honorable body in protest against a proposed piece of legislation. I refer to the bill which would permit Indian nationals to enter the United States as immigrants.

Ordinarily, in stating an opinion, I claim to speak for no one other than myself. In this case however, I feel that I can safely say that I speak the mind of practically every member of our armed forces who have served in this theater of war. The principle reason that you have not received a flood of letters from soldiers over here is that very few of us have, until quite recently, known of the proposed legislation.

Our fighter group has served in India and Burma for over two years and we have had opportunity to get to know at least a little about the people in this part of the world. The ignorance of the average American concerning India is appalling. Even after two years we ourselves find that we have learned little. However, we have learned enough to make us almost unanimously opposed to Indian immigration. I use “almost” on the premise that there must be someone in favor of it – so far I have found none.

Immigration of Indians into other countries has proven a source of trouble in every instance. The present agitation against Indians in South Africa and the Middle East are typical examples. In Burma I found the Indians to be an unwanted race. For one thing, they remain an alien race after immigration and are never assimilated into the pop-ulation. They retain their own modes of living and standards of morals and ethics, all of which are objectionable to even the primitive natives of North Burma. I refer, of course, not to the masses of Indians – their life of poverty, ignorance, disease and hunger cannot help but inspire a certain amount of pity. These are not the people who emigrate. I do refer to the more or less educated class – small merchants, money-lenders, etc.

We realize the small number of immigrants being considered. We also realize that the consequences would be all out of proportion to the num-bers involved. We feel that a thorough investigation and careful though would condemn this piece of legislation. Consequently, its passaged would appear to be a bit of haphazard lawmaking based upon sentiments and not on reasoning or logic. Such acts inevitably affect the citizens’ con-fidence in their elected leaders. The best alternative would seem to be the shelving of this bill until we come home after the war and are able to speak for ourselves. For the sake of our country do not cause a lot of bitterness by making tens of thousands of men feel they have been let down at home while they were away fighting for a home and a decent stand-ard of living.
Respectfully,
Walter J. Klingenberg
1st Lt., Air Corps