Nail salons subject of anti-Asian hate letters
Mailed anonymously, the typed notes include slurs, expletives and stereotypes
Nail salons in Riverside and Yucaipa are among those being targeted in an apparent campaign of anonymous, racist, hate letters being sent to Asian-owned businesses.
Riverside resident Jackie Vu’s family, which owns Top 10 Nails & Spa in the Tyler Square shopping center in Riverside, discovered such a letter Sunday, addressed to the salon, which is near the Galleria at Tyler mall. It was written to “all Asian,” without the s.
The typewritten, all-caps letter — posted by Vu on Instagram — includes expletives, slurs and stereotypes, calling the business owners “ugly, smelly and disgusting.” It tells them to go back to
their “nasty” country, adding an expletive to describe the nation.
The family reported the incident to the Riverside Police Department.
Vu, 32, used to work in the nail salons at the Galleria at Tyler. When Vu first read the letter, she said she was “at a loss for words” and “disgusted.” Her first instinct was to call other local, Vietnamese-owned salons to see if they had received similar letters, while warning them to take caution.
“This is my home,” Vu said Thursday. “Growing up here as a first-generation immigrant and to have that happen in own neighborhood, in my own backyard, and it really hurts. I want to experience the real American dream. Do not tell me that I am not deserving of that dream; to live a happy, free and fruitful life without being attacked or harassed.”
Riverside police spokesman Ryan Railsback said no suspect has yet been identified.
The words “Department of Health and Human Services” were typed in the envelope’s return address spot. The letter was not sent by the health department, Railsback said.
“At this point, we have no reason to believe there is a credible threat to this business, its owner or employees, but we are taking this very seriously and still monitoring this investigation,” Railsback said. “We’re expecting others to receive this identical letter, they just haven’t checked the mail yet.”
In Yucaipa, a nail salon owner received the same letter and reported it to the Yucaipa Police Department on Wednesday, according to Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino
County Sheriff’s Department. Recent news reports about rising anti-Asian hate crimes prompted the business owner to report it, Miller said.
The incident is under investigation and there are no leads, said Miller, who declined to name the business to protect its identity.
In incidents like these, Railsback said, suspects typically send hateful messages to multiple places. He encouraged Asianowned businesses and communities to report threatening emails, letters or phone messages to police.
The letters come as the Asian community has been the subject of a surge of anti-Asian hate crimes nationwide.
The nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate, which monitors hate and discrimination against the Asian American Pacific Islander community, received 3,795 incident reports from March 19, 2020, to Feb. 28. Almost half — 1,691, or 44.6% — were reported in California.
News accounts report that the same anonymous letter was sent to a nail salon in Sonoma County. In Seal Beach, an Asian
woman grieving her dead husband received a handwritten, anonymous letter Monday that said “Asians are taking over our American community.”
Fearing for their lives, communities and businesses, Asian Americans and others are speaking against the violence and hate crimes.
A Stop AAPI Hate rally, put together by minority-led community organizations, will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Chinese Pavilion in front of the library in downtown Riverside.
“We are just like everyone else. We are Americans,” said Karen Cheng of the Inland Chinese American Alliance. “We choose to come to this country because it is nice; people respect each other — but now, look what is happening to Asians.
Tam Nguyen, who runs Nailing It For America, a Southern California-based coalition that supports nail salons and health care workers, was in tears when he heard of the Inland Empire incidents.
“On top of what nail salons and owners have already been through, being shut down through this pandemic … for these letters to be received from salon owners who sacrifice their money and time, it’s just a slap in their faces,” Nguyen said. “It’s a stab in their back. It just hurts all of us as Americans, and it needs to be called for what it is — hateful, vile, disgusting.”