Statement to the Asian Community from Asian Student Union

Dear All:

This is to inform everyone of the progress of the Abercrombie and Fitch issue. Firstly, the offensive T-shirts were mostly off the shelves today, even though the notice to pull them was effective Wednesday in the press. The "Dragon Lady portrayal of WWII Asian Women" T-shirt is still on sale, however, and the "Wok-n-Bowl" was on the mannequin in front of the store along with "Buddha Bash" T-shirt on display in the morning of April 19th. A group of Asian student leaders went to the store in the evening at 6:30pm and the shirts on display was taken down, even though the "Dragon" shirt remained for sale.

AAA president Sinclair and myself went into the store to speak with the manager, and Mr. Cox, one of the store manager spoke with us. We thanked them for finally pulling the shirts from the mannequin, but asked about what is the progress for A&F system wide. He said he was advised to make no comments on other issues from corporate headquarters with the exception that the t-shirts in question are pulled. We asked about the "Dragon" t-shirt and he told us that the notices to pull the shirts did not include the "dragon" Shirt. We also asked if A&F plans to do anything to ameliorate the already appalled APA population or if anything for public relations and education of diversity will take place, and he replied that there is no information on that as well. 

While we demand further actions from Abercrombie & Fitch, including a public apology and unequivocal statement of regret, we would like to ask that the Asian community come to our website (www.iu.edu/~asu) for information and links while peacefully waiting for further progress. We are dissatisfied with Abercrombie and Fitch's response and we are taking actions to push for corrections to happen, such as a statement to the newspaper, which we are collecting support from Asian student leaders. We shall update you all on the progress through email and updates on the website.

Thank you very much for your patience and support.

Sincerely,

Christopher Chan
Chairperson
Asian Student Union

(This letter was hand delivered to the College Mall branch manager on April 20th 2002)