We the undersigned are writing to express our outrage at your store's use of a Vietnamese caricature, Ho Chi Mama.

http://www.saigoniste.com/
http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/tmp/saigoniste.jpg
http://www.saigoniste.com/news_tips.html

Your play on Ho Chi Minh's name and having her speak in broken English is ridiculous. By keeping Ho Chi Mama, you perpetuate stereotypes that Vietnamese and Asian Americans have been battling for centuries. The "fortune cookie dialect," romanticism for colonialism, and disregard for complaints made to your store in the past year, are all reprehensible. Ho Chi Mama is offensive and a reflection of your ignorance. We find no humor in your effort to belittle and repackage Orientalism for consumption.

We are a people, not a marketing tool.

Love Vietnam? Love the people? Then love our voices and anger. It's beyond being un-PC to market a country like a hip shopping mall. To maintain that it is right to keep Ho Chi Mama by virtue of her popularity with your Asian and non-Asian patrons denies culpability. Fortunately there are Asian, non-Asian, and particularly Vietnamese who make it a point to not patronize your store explicitly because of Ho Chi Mama. Stereotypes affect more people than those who frequent the Soho and Nolita areas in New York City. Stereotypes affect communities everywhere.

We ask that you remove Ho Chi Mama from all forms of marketing (product tags, window display, website, etc.) and submit a public apology to the signatories of this petition. While your shop maintains that Ho Chi Mama is not offensive to a majority of people, this petition will demonstrate otherwise.