Racism at an Acura Dealership
On Saturday, September 27, 1997 ( about 3:00 p.m.)
My family mother, father, sister, & girlfriend and I went to look at the new
Acuras at Golden Gate, Cadillac & Acura located near the Serramonte Mall. As
we parked the car, a group of sales people were sitting in front of the
dealership waiting to greet us.
As my father opened his car door, Dan Fallon, (sales rep.), greeted him with,
"There are no Chinese salespeople here, so you have to speak English. No,
speak Chinese. We fired all the Chinese salespeople because there were giving
away the cars too cheap."
My father responded with his own comments about how they shouldn't treat
people like that, while my sister was expressing how racist the men were. I
was in shock and only expressed how tacky this man was. After this 2 min.
verbal altercation, we decided to leave. When we started to back out of the
parking space, Fallon and Sam Sharieh(sales rep.) started laughing and gave
each other an elevated high-five, intoxicated with the fact they drove away
an asian family.
We got to the end of the parking lot and decided to turn back. We parked in
the same space and asked Fallon if he was the manager and he declared that he
was. When my father asked him for the manager once again, he pointed
nonchalantly to the entrance. So my father directed his attention towards the
entrance of the dealership and asked another sales person for the general
manager. He then turned back to Fallon and asked him for his name. Fallon
told my father that his name was Dave Johnson. For some reason, we were not directed to a general manager, but directed to
another sales person. This gentleman, Raymond Kwong, was of asian descent.
I suppose they thought his presence would make the situation better.
Sharieh, frantic about the situation, pled with us to make a deal with an
Acura to relieve the situation.
One of the salespeople, who was outside when the incident was going on,
rushed in and stated that he understood why we were so upset. He then stated
Fallon's comment was unnecessary and that he was an a hole for saying such a
thing. He then apologized for him.
When we explained the situation to Kwong, he stated that he was Chinese and
that he was one of the best salespeople at the dealership. He claimed that
the tension may have escalated within the dealership due to his excellent
sales performance. When Kwong was trying to find Brian McSherry (General
Sales Manager), Sam Sharieh pointed to another asian salesperson and asked
him to deal with us so that Kwong can help other customers. Kwong was very
helpful and directed us to Brian McSherry.
We explained the situation to McSherry and he stated that a comment like that
would have bothered him also. He then called for Fallon, who ran off to the
rear of the dealership. When Fallon arrived, McSherry asked him to go into
his office. They spoke inside the office for a few minutes then came back
out. We then explained the situation again and had another verbal
altercation. During the second verbal altercation, Fallon stated he had done nothing wrong
and came up very close (about 18") to my face screaming that he will never
apologize to me about what he did. If he believed that he didn't do anything
wrong, then why did he feel the need to give us a false name. He then went on
saying if we thought there were legal actions that we can take then we should
try it. When we asked him why it was necessary for him to make a comment like
that, he told us that many Chinese customers come into the dealership and
that if we didn't find the comment to be funny then we came in with a bad
attitude in the first place. Fallon was justifying his
comment by telling us that they have many Chinese customers, therefore the
comment should have been funny and that we are at fault for taking it so
seriously. He then continued to stand very close to me and screamed, "I did
nothing wrong, so don't think that you are getting an apology from me." The general manager had to push Fallon away from me and asked everyone to keep
their voices down. McSherry then told Fallon to get out of there. Fallon went back to the front of the dealership to greet new customers, while
McSherry told us that he can't do anything because he didn't witness what
really happened. I guess McSherry had forgotten that he had to hold Fallon
back from harassing a customer. McSherry told us he can only apologize for
Fallon's actions, but he could do nothing else or promise that there will be
any other consequences that Fallon would face. Luckily, Kwong wanted some justice for our mistreatment, so he told us to
contact Mike Spano (General Manager), the gentleman who is above Brian
McSherry. I guess McSherry didn't want to give this option to us. We then
asked McSherry to write the two salespeople's names down on a card. As we were leaving, Sharieh continued to plea with our family to make a deal
with them, saying that we would get a real good deal. We ignored his sarcasm
and headed straight for our car. Here we were cut off by Fallon where he said
that he had time to clear his head and told us that this was not a racist
act. My father and I ignored his remarks and headed towards the car, but my
sister had another verbal altercation with him. Then a female sales rep ran
out and ordered my sister not to harass Fallon. She also told her that this
was a place of business and ordered her to leave because there were customers
inside.
The only bright side to the situation is that an african-amercian couple and
two asian-american women witnessed the incident and walked out of the show
room in disgust. As they were leaving, they stated that they weren't going to
do business with this dealership.
I can't believe that this happened to my family and myself, especially near
San Francisco. I only hope that this will never happen to anyone else.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or need
further details about the incident. Please contact Golden Gate Acura if you
would like to hear what they have to say about this incident. I am pleading
with anyone reading this letter to advocate their community to contact Golden
Gate Acura and express your own opinions on how they treat the asian-american community.
Their phone number is 415-985-1000, and is located @ 707 Serramonte Boulevard
Colma/Daly City, CA 94014.
My name is Patrick Poon and you may contact me at anytime about the
incident. (415) 571-1999. Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely Yours,
Patrick Poon
