One shirt featured a caricatured Asian man beside the words, "Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White," while another featured an image of the Buddha along with the phrase, "Buddha Bash-Get Your Buddha On the Floor."
The shirts incited anger from Asian-American student groups all over the country. On Friday, rallies were held simultaneously in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. "The rallies all went really well," said Bethany Li '03, co-founder of the National Asian American Student Conference (NAASCon).
"The main point was to educate everyone about the racist line of tee shirts. The Asian American community knows, but the majority of Americans don't," she said.
Fred Sanchez '04 helped to organize the rally at the Holyoke Mall on Saturday. The group of about 35 protesters from Amherst, Mt. Holyoke College and UMass met at the Barnes and Noble near the mall and was about to enter the mall when they were stopped by a mall security officer. The officer informed them that they were on private property and warned them that they could be arrested if they did not leave, according to Sanchez.
The group returned to the area near Barnes and Noble for their protest. "We had signs and pamphlets and we asked people who were interested to sign our petition," said Sanchez. "Most people honked and some actually stopped and talked to us. People seemed interested and a lot of them didn't even know what was going on, so we explained it to them."
"This is only the latest thing in pop culture that discriminates against Asian Americans," said Tim Mak '02, who attended the rally. "I think people are becoming more lax about it."
A rally at an Abercrombie in Cambridge was attended by about 150 people, according to Harvard student Christopher Tam. "People walking by stopped to read our flyers and talk to us," said Tam. "Several people actually picked up signs and joined in our rally."
The issue came to the attention of the Asian American student community last week, according to Li. "[Other student leaders and I] noticed a lot of talk and a lot of different demands and agendas floating around," said Li. "This is really why we founded NAASCon, so we could pull together student groups to form a national voice."
The final list demanded that Abercrombie permanently remove the entire line of t-shirts from stores, publish a public apology in all major national newspapers, encourage consumers to return t-shirts for an unconditional refund, increase diversity in the company's promotional materials, increase philanthropy to promote racial awareness, and hire a new consulting team to ensure company-wide sensitivity to racial issues.
The list of demands was officially endorsed by about 60 colleges and universities nationwide, as well as national Asian American student groups.
Li asked Abercrombie public relations representative Hampton Carney to give the demands to executives and proposed a meeting between student representatives, Abercrombie executives and representatives from the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Students have also gathered at least 10,000 signatures from around the country, according to Li. A student at Ohio State University will bring the petition to Abercrombie headquarters, which are located in Ohio.
Abercrombie spokespeople defended the t-shirts, maintaining that there was no intent to offend or perpetuate stereotypes. "These graphic t-shirts were designed with the sole purpose of adding humor and levity to our fashion line," Carney told Reuters. "We thought everyone would love them, especially the Asian community."
Li suspects Abercrombie will try to stall in hopes that students will forget about the issue. "Abercrombie might think we're going to forget about this, but we're not," said Li. "If they keep dragging their feet, I think there will be another big eruption in the fall."