NYC Michelin-starred restaurant Jeju Noodle Bar was recently vandalized with racist graffiti.- Someone wrote "Stop eating dogs" on the window of the restaurant's winter vestibule in black Sharpie.
- The incident is just one example of the rising number of racist attacks against Asian-American
restaurants in the US amid the ongoingcoronavirus pandemic . - Insider spoke with Asian-American restaurant workers across the US, who said their employees were too afraid to make deliveries because of racist attacks and a recent incident with white nationalists.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
When Douglas Kim first saw the message, he thought it was a scam.
Kim, the owner of NYC Michelin-starred restaurant Jeju Noodle Bar, had received a photo over Instagram from someone who said they were a regular customer.
"Hey, I'm in the neighborhood," the message read. "I'm sorry, I saw this terrible graffiti." Kim had to click on the photo to see a clear image. He decided to take the risk.
There, scribbled in Sharpie marker across the window of his restaurant's winter vestibule, were three words: "Stop eating dogs."
The April 10 incident is just one example of the rising number of racist attacks against Asian-American restaurants in the US amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
Insider spoke with Asian-American restaurant workers across the country, who discussed everything from their employees being too afraid to do deliveries because of the attacks to coming face-to-face with white nationalists.
Kim said he wasn't surprised that his restaurant, one of the most affordable Michelin-starred establishments in NYC, was vandalized.
The racist graffiti came just weeks after Kim made the decision to temporarily close Jeju Noodle Bar because his head chef and employees didn't feel safe coming to work or doing deliveries.
"I had hope that we were going to do okay with delivery," Kim said. "I was telling my key players, 'I think we can do delivery at least, I can pay you guys and I think we can stretch it and stay open.'"
But Kim's head chef told him that she no longer felt safe even getting on the subway
"People look at me and they give me a weird look," she told him. "They don't want to sit next to me. When I'm on the subway or public transportation, I feel like somebody keeps looking at me."
Kim asked some of his other employees if they felt the same, and they told him about one of their friends who they said had been beaten up in the street. Then, Kim's friend, a fellow restaurant owner, told him that her son was attacked by three men inside the elevator of her luxury high-rise apartment building. That same week,
Kim decided that staying open wasn't worth the risk.
"What if one of my employees got hurt?" he said. "That's the worst thing that could happen."
Eric Chan told Insider that many of his employees at Jade Garden, a Chinese restaurant in Seattle , are also too scared to come back to work
Asian-American businesses in the city's Chinatown-International district had recently been tagged with white nationalist stickers.
On April 12, Chan saw three white men wearing sunglasses and white bandanas around their faces place a sticker on his restaurant.
"They were crossing the street, coming towards me, and walked right past me," he said. "Then their heads turn backwards and they keep looking at me and I'm like, 'What is going on with these guys?' I thought, maybe they're just punks looking at me because I'm Asian."
After the men disappeared, Chan went to get a closer look at the sticker they had left on his building. It read "Better dead than red," a Cold War slogan that has since been adopted by the white nationalist group Patriot Front.
As Chan walked around Chinatown, he saw the men had left stickers on numerous Asian-American businesses. "For the nation against the state," some read. "Not stolen, conquered," others stated. A sticker had also been placed on the community's statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China.
Chan said he didn't realize what the stickers truly meant until he posted photos of them on his community's Facebook group.
"People messaged me and said, 'This is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group, report this immediately," Chan recalled. "I was like, 'Oh, s***.'"
A spokesman for the Seattle Police Department's Bias Crime Unit told Insider that there is still an active investigation into the incident. The stickers have since been scraped off by community members.
Chan's run-in with the men came just weeks after his family's restaurant was vandalized
In the early hours of March 26, someone smashed the windows of Jade Garden. Chan told Insider that he broke down in tears when he saw the vandalism.
"I f****** cried, I was heartbroken," he said. "We've been working nonstop, 14 hours a day, my mom, my dad, my wife, my brother and sister. No breaks. The most time I ever get in a day is 30 minutes to myself, and that's when I go shower and use the bathroom. After that, I go to bed."
"To see that the next morning, I just broke down," he added. "It was like a punch in the stomach. I felt super helpless."
Business was already down 80%. The family couldn't afford to pay the $1,500 they needed to fix the windows.
"Even if I fix them, they're going to break them again," Chan said. "I had no choice but to board them up."
Chan believes the vandalism was racially motivated
In the weeks prior, Chan said people were calling his restaurant or opening the front door just to scream about coronavirus before hanging up or running off.
"You brought the virus here," some would yell.
And Chan had heard of a number of other Asian restaurants being vandalized.
At Minado Buffet, a restaurant in Yakima, Washington, someone had broken the windows and written the words: "Take the corona back you chink." In New York's East Village neighborhood in Manhattan, Gem Bing Shop decided to close indefinitely after its street sign was destroyed on March 18.
Xiaoyu Gu, the owner of the Beijing street food restaurant, believes Gem Bing Shop was targeted because the sign advertised "Authentic Chinese street food."
"It feels like we may be actively asking to be beaten up," she told Bedford and Bowery.
Gu took to Instagram to tell her customers what happened, and said she believed President Donald Trump was partially to blame for the recent attacks against Asian-Americans and their restaurants.
Trump and a number of other GOP politicians used the terms 'Wuhan virus' or 'Chinese virus' throughout the month of March as the coronavirus began to sweep across America
The president told reporters that he didn't think the term was racist, nor did he believe that calling coronavirus the "Chinese virus" would negatively impact Asian-Americans.
A photograph taken during Trump's press briefing on March 19 showed that the word "Corona" had been crossed out in his notes and replaced with "Chinese."
Four days later, Trump changed his tune and told Americans it was "very important that we totally protect our Asian-American community in the United States and all around the world."
"They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form," he tweeted.
While Trump has since walked back from calling coronavirus the 'Chinese virus,' the president said he did not regret using the term
"Look, everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn't make any more of a big deal out of it," Trump told Fox News on March 24. "I think I've made a big deal. I think people understand it."
That same week, the FBI released a report warning that there would likely be a "surge" of hate crimes against Asian-Americans "due to the spread of coronavirus disease."
In the last month, 11 Asian-Americans were attacked in New York due to the perception that they had the coronavirus, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department told Insider. And New York Attorney General Letitia James told Insider that her office has received 40 bias complaints related to the coronavirus since launching a hotline on March 23 to report hate crimes against Asian-Americans.
"As we face an unprecedented and uncertain time for New York, the United States, and the world, we must reiterate the fact that this pandemic does not give anyone an excuse to be racist, xenophobic, or biased," said James. "No one should live in fear for their life because of who they are, what they look like, or where they come from."
While Americans all over the country are worrying about getting infected, Asian-Americans are scared they'll be attacked by more than just the virus
"All Asian-Americans are scared as hell," Chan told Insider.
Alongside the physical attacks are the more subtle acts of discrimination. The stares on the train, or even in their own apartment buildings.
"I started realizing that people were trying to stay away from me because I'm Asian," Kim told Insider. "The other day, I was going down the hallway of my apartment and this guy saw me and jumped to the other side."
"I'm sure a lot of Asian-Americans are facing the same problem at the moment," he added. "They probably feel that every time they walk on the street, that people look at them like an alien, or try to run away from them because they're Asian."
Jada Chiu, whose family owns the Chinese restaurant Jade Palace in Oakland, California, told Insider that she has had similar stares in the supermarket.
"When I go to the store, it's a lot of passive stuff," she said. "People turning and running in the other direction. I don't see them doing that to other people."
Despite fears for their own safety, many Asian-American restaurant workers are staying open to try and keep their businesses afloat
Chinatown restaurants in the US were seeing an unprecedented drop in sales as early as the beginning of February. By the end of the month, both Chan and Chiu said their sales were down by 80%.
"Our business pretty much came to a screeching halt," Chiu said. "I don't think it was even this bad during the recession."
But Chiu said her parents have insisted on keeping the restaurant open, believing it would also keep the business safe from vandals.
Chan said he is now personally making deliveries with the help of his wife, brother, and sister. He now closes the restaurant at 8 p.m. in further efforts to keep them safe.
"Getting sick and people attacking us, that's obviously in the back of our minds," he said. "But we have no choice, we have to work."
As Asian-Americans continue to face unprecedented hardships, their communities have rallied to bring some light in these trying times
When Kim went to his restaurant the morning after the customer told him about the racist graffiti, he found that she had already washed most of it off.
And after he posted a picture of the graffiti on Jeju Noodle Bar's Instagram, he was surprised to receive such an outpouring of support.
"People started reposting for us and giving us shout-outs," he said. "That was really appreciated. I was very impressed that people still care, and that there's still good hearts out there."
After Chan had to board up his restaurant due to the vandalism, local artists covered the wood in bright and beautiful murals.
"We're open!" declared turquoise words painted in the middle of a shining sun. In another, noodles and teapots and chopsticks danced together.
In San Francisco , a group of 30 volunteers have created the SF Peace Collective to help the Chinatown community feel safe
Founder Max Leung told Insider that the group regularly patrols the streets both on foot and by vehicle (while still practicing social distancing).
They also keep watch as restaurant owners close up at night, when they feel the most vulnerable.
"There is a long history of attacks and violence against the Asian-American community in San Francisco," Leung said. "We always hoped that it would get better, but instead it's getting worse. Someone needed to do something. Something had to be done. The police and politicians haven't been able to stop it. We couldn't wait for something that was never going to happen."
"We believe in being proactive," he added. "We had to make it happen ourselves. We have to protect ourselves and our community."
Wing On Wo & Co, the oldest operating store in NYC's Chinatown, has since launched Love Letters to Chinatown, calling on community members to send poems, paintings, and more that will help lift the neighborhood up "in its darkest times."
Chan said he hopes Americans realize that Asian-American restaurant workers are doing everything they can to stay open and serve both their communities and their own families
"Most Asian restaurants are small, they're family-owned, and they're going through a tough time right now," he said. "This is the lifeline of my family. "We're just trying to survive."
Chiu likewise wants people to understand the pride and struggle that Asian-Americans across the US have put into their businesses to "make strides in their lifetime."
"My grandfather came here with my dad and they built this business," she said. "We're three generations. I've worked there, my cousins have worked there, it's a proud family business."
"This August we were going to celebrate our 50th anniversary of business," she added. "Now we're wondering if we're even going to be open. We don't know if we're going to survive."
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