Testimonial letter from Andrew I. Uehara
This letter is one of a remarkable series of over 2650 letters amassed in 1983 to support Osho's attempt to get permanent resident status in the US at the time of the Oregon ranch. The image is reproduced here with the kind permission of The Oregon Historical Society. Information about their collection of these letters and other supporting material -- the "Jeffrey Noles Rajneesh Collection", named for Osho's immigration lawyer Jeffrey Noles, who compiled them in 1983 and donated them to the OHS -- can be found at this page. The wiki is grateful to the OHS for making access available for these documents. For more information and links to all the letters, see Testimonial letters.
This letter is from Andrew I. Uehara. It is "Exhibit A-562" in the Noles collection.
The text version below has been created by optical character recognition (OCR), from the images supplied by OHS. It has not been checked for errors but this process usually results in over 99% correct transcription. Most apparent "errors" are correct transcriptions of typos already in the original. The image on the right in the text box links to a pdf file of the original letter, it has one page.
 HELIOTROPE NATURAL FOODS To Whom It May Concern: As an Oregon resident of ten years and as a small business owner as well I wish to lend my positive support to the petition of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to become a resident of the United States. Though his presence thus far as proven controversial to some Oregonians, I would like it to be known that there are Oregonians who are positively impressed by the inspiration that this unusual man provides to his disciples in the operation of their communal farm and their Portland business enterprises. Having visited their farm, I was impressed by the ecological care given in raising their crops and farm animals, an attitude which is attributed to the spiritual values of Rajneesh that man should live in harmony with nature. Their religious and innovative use of organic farming methods could assure them of a significant share of the growing natural foods market in the Northwest in the years to come. Our store has been one of the few non-Rajneesh owned Oregon businesses to begin to carry some of the organically grown produce and eggs produced by their farm. Despite some members of the Salem fundamentalist Christian community who have let it be known that they would refuse to patronize our store because of our carrying Rajneesh products, our employees, for example, rejected the idea of our giving in to such religious intolerance pointing out that our store also carries products produced by other religious or lifestyle minorities. The Rajneesh experiment has benefited many Oregon businesses and the presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in this economically depressed state has made Oregon a tourist attraction for his many disciples around the world. It seems to me that Oregon has much to gain economically if not spiritually should this unusual man and religious leader be allowed to remain in the United States. Sincerely |
(Please note: We assume that the above letter is still copyrighted, but we regard its historical interest to constitute a Fair Use exception for publication in this wiki.)
