November 15, 2025
November 15, 2025

#ChangeTheMascot, #NotYourMascot: Why Asian Americans Should Care

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Yaaaaaaahooooooo!

That was my reaction to the U.S. Patent Office’s recent decision to cancel several of the Washington R*dskins trademarks. Whether it was more consequential from a legal or symbolic standpoint is being analyzed and debated in plenty of other publications, so I won’t attempt to wade into that discussion here. But as you may be able to discern from my previous two columns on this blog, the R*dskins name has been an issue I’ve felt strongly about for a long time. This was my letter to the editor, published in ESPN The Magazine back in 2000, on the heels of the previous occasion that the U.S. Patent Office ruled against the R*dskins (a decision later reversed by a federal court on a technicality):

As a Chinese-American, I can imagine how disturbed I would be if the Washington franchise were known as the Yellowskins, or if the team that played at Jacobs Field were called the Cleveland Chinese and had some squinty-eyed Fu Manchu character on its baseball caps. This is not just a concern for Native Americans. It is a concern for all Americans.

As an Asian American, and as a father to Asian American daughters, I have a major stake in this. True, the “Redskins” slur isn’t directly aimed at me and my daughters. But it’s important for me – and for all Asian Americans – to care about this matter, not only because fellow human beings are deeply demeaned and psychologically harmed by it, and not only because it concerns the decency of our society, but also because what affects one minority group affects all people of color. We’re all in this together.

So it was with great interest that I read some old news stories several weeks ago. It led me to do a bit of digging on my own as well, and I’d like to share the fruits of all that. I tweeted these items out on June 2, and because of the pictures that are involved, it’s best for me to just repost those tweets sequentially below.

See some parallels with the debate over “R*dskins”? The entire discussion in our public square over derogatory team mascots affects us all. In Washington, it’s the R*dskins. In Pekin, Illinois, it was the Chinks. In Coachella Valley, California, it is – yes, still is – the Coachella Valley High School Arabs, complete with a snarling “Arab” mascot.

Asian Americans should care about this issue, out of compassion for our Native brothers and sisters and out of concern for the decency of our society.

And for me, there’s one more reason: because I’m looking out for my daughters, too.

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