Even as Sino-American relations thawed, anti-Asian hostility smoldered in certain regions of the United States, for reasons that had nothing to do with China. The Japanese—or Asians in general—were widely perceived to be the source of America’s troubles, foreign competitors who stole American jobs by working cheaply. “Many of Detroit’s corporate heads, politicians, and leaders are blaming the Japanese for America’s economic woes,” said Helen Zia, a Princeton-educated Chinese American writer who had been working in auto factories to build Asian American political consciousness on a grassroots level. ”In Detroit, the bumper stickers say it all,” she observed. ”Honda, Toyota, Pearl Harbor“ was one. ”Unemployment—Made in Japan” was another. The reality, of course, was that the rejection of American-made cars was related to management failures in planning and design, not to cheap Asian labor. It was not that Japanese workers worked for less, but that Japanese cars worked better. (Chang 319-320)