Originally published in the Pacific Citizen newspaper
Oct. 5, 2007
Frannie Richards stopped by the Michigan Avenue H&M on her lunch break hoping to walk out with a dress or a new suit. She never expected to emerge with a different kind of suit - a lawsuit.
The Filipino American nurse is filing a complaint against the corporate clothing behemoth for an alleged racial slur one of its employees made to her in mid-September at an H&M in downtown Chicago. According to Richards, she had just entered the store and was browsing the racks when an employee near her raised his hand and exclaimed loudly, “Mail order bride in the house!” before running over to a fellow employee and bursting into laughter.
“I was shocked and disgusted,” said the 33-year old retired U.S. Air Force reserve staff sergeant in an interview. In her complaint to the Chicago Commission of Human Relations, she stated: “I felt he was implying that I was a whore and couldn’t understand why he would say anything so derogatory.”
Richards then approached the employee, a Caucasian male in his late twenties or early thirties, and asked for a fitting room.
“Can you read that sign? It says ‘fitting room,’” he allegedly told her, muttering “Ching, chong, chang” as she walked away.
“I was dumbfounded,” said Richards, who was born and raised in Chicago. “When he first said it, I couldn’t believe it, but even when I went up to him, he wouldn’t stop. He just went on and on and on. […] I’m not naïve about racism, but for him to say it disgusts me. He didn’t understand how degrading it was.”
Since then, she has contacted the Better Business Bureau, the Chicago Commission of Human Relations, and the Asian American Institute for help. Numerous attempts to elicit a response from H&M management has yielded few results; Richards said she was bounced from manager to manager before receiving a call from H&M’s Midwest corporate manager, who informed Richards she was also of Asian descent and that the company does not condone the employee’s behavior. That did little to soothe Richards.
“I couldn’t sleep [that night]. I was crying.”
The incident follows close on the heels of the drowning death of Du Doan, a 62-year-old Vietnamese American fisherman who was pushed off a harbor into Chicago’s Lake Michigan only weeks earlier. Many local Asian Americans believe his death is tied to anti-Asian sentiment. The man being charged with Doan’s murder is a member of a skinhead group (though allegedly an “anti-racist skinhead group”) and, according to authorities, is prone to violent behavior.
Doan’s death has raised the profile of anti-Asian sentiment in Chicago, said Myron Dean Quon, Richard’s representing attorney and legal director of the Asian American Institute.
“There are a lot of anti-Asian incidents in Chicago but people don’t know what to do or just suck it up and move on. Ever since [the Doan murder] we’ve been getting reports of all sorts of incidents,” said Quon, asserting the belief that if Richards had been in an H&M in a different city, the scenario might have played out very differently.
“I have no doubt that if this happened in San Francisco or New York or even L.A., the response would be different. They might even get beaten up by their coworkers, there are so many Asian Americans [in those cities],” he added.
While Richards said that it is too late for an apology, she hopes that people will learn from this.
“I want people to know that there is no right place or right time to say any sort of racial comment, especially in a professional atmosphere,” she said. “If he came to my hospital and was treated like that by any of the doctors or nurses, we would be terminated.”
Richards is seeking compensation for emotional distress and legal fees.
Her attorney, Quon, hopes this will lead to better diversity training workshops.
“[Currently] they’re kind of pathetic, and people roll their eyes and laugh. They just don’t work,” he said. “We want people to realize the seriousness of slurs.”
At press time, H&M had not yet responded to Richard’s complaint and refused all media inquiries. The retailer has until Oct. 21 to file a formal response with the Chicago Commission of Human Relations.
And what if the clothing giant fails to respond by then?
“Then,” said Quon, “we go ahead and push.”
