From:             dchiang@juno.com
To:               sdraoul@aol.com, pjherz@siu.edu, arthurhu@halcyon.com,
        Ekent@brooklyn.cuny.edu, msk@cis.org, matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu,
        DaleWarner@aol.com
Subject:          FWD: Asian Bashing in San Francisco
Date sent:        Thu, 09 Oct 1997 21:47:38 EDT




Subject:   Asian Bashing in San Francisco
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 06:56:32 -0700
From: Patrick Poon <patrickpoon@sprintmail.com


Subject: racism at Serramonte


Hey guys,


I crashed  my car on Tue. and this happened to my family & me  on Sat.
when we looked for new cars.  I am currently sending this to all the
media sources I can, but if there is something else i can do, please tell
me. thanks for you time,


pat


On Saturday, September 27, 1997 ( about 3:00 p.m.)


My  family (mother, father, sister, & girlfriend)  and I went to look at
the new Acuras at Golden Gate, Cadillac & Acura located near the
Serramonte Mall.  As we parked the car, a group of sales people were
sitting in front of the dealership waiting to greet us.


As my father opened his car door, Dan Fallon, (sales rep.), greeted him
with, "There are no Chinese salespeople here, so you have to speak
English.  No, speak Chinese.  We fired all the Chinese salespeople
because there were giving away the cars too cheap."


My father responded with his own comments about how they shouldn't treat
people like that, while my sister was expressing how racist the men were.
 I was in shock and only expressed how tacky this man was. After this 2
min. verbal altercation, we decided to leave.  When we started to back
out of the parking space, Fallon and Sam Sharieh(sales rep.) started
laughing and gave each other an elevated high-five,
intoxicated with the fact they drove away an asian family.


     We got to the end of the parking lot and decided to turn back.  We
parked in the same space and asked Fallon if he was the manager and he
declared that he was.  When my father asked him for the  manager once
again, he pointed nonchalantly to the entrance.  So my father directed
his attention towards the entrance of the dealership and asked another
sales person for the general manager.  He then turned back to Fallon and
asked him for his name.  Fallon told my father that his name was Dave
Johnson.


     For some reason, we were not directed to a general manager, but
directed to another sales person.   This gentleman, Raymond Kwong, was of
asian descent.  I suppose they thought his presence would make the
situation better.  Sharieh, frantic about the situation,  pled with us to
make a deal with an Acura to relieve the situation.


One of the salespeople, who was outside when the incident was going on,
rushed in and stated that he understood why we were so upset.  He then

stated Fallon's comment was unnecessary and that he was an a**hole for
saying such a thing.  He then apologized for him.


     When we explained the situation to Kwong, he stated that he was
Chinese and that he was one of the best salespeople at the dealership. 
He claimed that the tension may have escalated within the dealership due
to his excellent sales performance.  When Kwong was trying to find Brian
McSherry (General Sales Manager), Sam Sharieh pointed to another asian
salesperson and asked him to deal with us so that Kwong can help other
customers.  Kwong was very helpful and directed us to Brian McSherry.


We explained the situation to McSherry and he stated that a comment like
that would have bothered him also.  He then called for Fallon, who ran
off to the rear of the dealership.  When Fallon arrived, McSherry asked
him to go into his office.  They spoke inside the office for a few
minutes then came back out.  We then explained the situation again and
had another verbal altercation.


During the second verbal altercation,  Fallon stated he had done nothing
wrong and came up very close (about 18") to my face screaming that he
will never apologize to me about what he did.  If he believed that he
didn't do anything wrong, then why did he feel the need to give us a
false name.  He then went on saying if we thought there were legal
actions that we can take then we should try it.  When we asked him why
it was necessary for him to make a comment like that, he told us that
many Chinese customers come into the dealership and that if we didn't
find the comment to be funny then we came in with a bad attitude in the
first place.  Fallon was justifying his comment by telling us that they
have many Chinese customers, therefore the comment should have been funny
and that we are at fault for taking it so seriously.  He then continued
to stand very close to me and screamed, "I did nothing wrong,
so don't think that you are getting an apology from me."  The general
manager had to push Fallon away from me and asked everyone to keep their
voices down.  McSherry then told Fallon to get out of there.


     Fallon went back to the front of the dealership to greet new
customers, while McSherry told us that he can't do anything because he
didn't witness what really happened.  I guess McSherry had forgotten that
he had to hold Fallon back from harassing a customer.  McSherry told us
he can only apologize for Fallon's actions, but he could do nothing else
or promise that there will be any other consequences that Fallon would
face.


     Luckily,  Kwong wanted some justice for our mistreatment, so he told
us to contact Mike Spano (General Manager),  the gentleman who is above
Brian McSherry.  I guess McSherry didn't want to give this option to us. 
We then asked McSherry to write the two salespeople's names down on a
card.


     As we were leaving, Sharieh continued to plea with our family to
make a deal with them, saying that we would get a real good deal.  We
ignored his sarcasm and headed straight for our car.  Here we were cut
off by Fallon where he said that he had time to clear his head and told
us that this was not a racist act.  My father and I ignored his remarks
and headed towards the car, but my sister had another verbal

altercation with him.   Then a female sales rep ran out and ordered my
sister not to harass Fallon.   She also told her that this was a place of
business and ordered her to leave because there were customers inside.


     The only bright side to the situation is that an african-amercian
couple and two asian-american women witnessed the incident and walked out
of the show room in disgust.  As they were leaving, they stated that they
weren't going to do business with this dealership.


     I can't believe that this happened to my family and myself,
especially near San Francisco.  I only hope that this will never happen
to anyone else.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any
questions or need further details about the incident.  Please contact
Golden Gate Acura if you would like to hear what they have to say about
this incident.  I am pleading with anyone reading this letter to advocate
their community to contact Golden Gate Acura and express your own
opinions on how they treat the asian-american community.


     Their phone number is 415-985-1000, and is located @
     707 Serramonte Boulevard
     Colma/Daly City, CA 94014




My name is Patrick Poon and you may contact me at anytime about the
incident.  (415) 571-1999


Thank you very much for your time.




Sincerely Yours,


Patrick Poon


______________________________________


Date: 97-10-08 17:16:57 EDT


Hi Everyone,


For everyone who is interested in keeping track of the Golden Gate Acura
Dealership, there is a large article in today's SF Chronicle.  See:


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN54588.DTL&directory
=/chronicle/archive/1997/10/08


or


Go to www.sfgate.com -> chronicle -> news.
------
Victor Whang of Asian Law Caucus 415-391-1655 and Haden Lee of
Organization of Chinese Americans,  415 342-8336.


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