I haven’t had much occasion to travel long distances by car lately, so I haven’t really noticed the motel signs that say “American Owned.” Coach D posted about how she boycotted such places on her vacation:
I had adamently refused to stay anywhere that had on it’s sign “American Owned”.
Big D argued well,”What if it turns out they’re not some local dicks trying to cash in on being white in the post 9-11 south? What if they’re naturalized citizens from someplace else and they’re taking advantage of the whole ‘American owned’ movement by putting that on their sign? They are AMERICAN, right?”
“But then they’re feeding that whole line of racist thought, they’re promoting the xenophobic tourist and racist/anti-immigrant mindset. Fuck that shit. I ain’t giving them my money if they put that shit on their sign.” [Link]
This is an issue for the owner of the Route66motels.com website as well, a website designed to encourage travellers on Route 66 to stay at mom-and-pop motels, but which refuses to list any motels that say “American Owned”:
Q. So what are the standards?
A. There are three. First, no vermin. Second, it has to be clean. This means no visible dirt and no weird smells. Third, no motel advertising itself as “AMERICAN OWNED” will ever be listed on this site. Period. No exceptions.
Q. What’s wrong with saying the motel is American-owned? Isn’t that just being patriotic?
A. No. It would be patriotic to fly an American flag or put up a sign that says something like “Support our troops” or “God bless the U.S.A.” The phrase “American owned” has a racist connotation. … There is no legitimate reason to advertise one’s pedigree on a billboard or in front of a business. [Link]
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p>I had no idea this was going on, but it was easy enough to find motel signs (from delightfully cheesy motels) of places that do it. Click on the photo to be taken to the original on Flickr, it’s far larger and prettier.
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p>I’m with Coach D on this issue – I would never stay at a motel that says “American Owned and Operated” in big letters outside. If they’re non-desis, then I don’t think they really want my business – I wouldn’t expect them to treat me well. And if they’re desis, then they might not want me around lest I scare off the @$$holes they’ve attracted as clients. Either way, I imagine I would be treated poorly. Why not take my money somewhere else?
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An encounter between Coach D and one of the motel employees shows the level of ignorance and bigotry that exists out there:
“How long you worked here?”
“Five months. These Indians, man. They got everything they want from us. You know the govenment gives them free money and grants and shit so they can buy businesses?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Naw, it’s true. My boyfriends mother is from Hawaii and she got a grant from the government. Free money, shit. It’s not fair… I’m saying that Indians get to come to this country and get money that I can’t get and they get rich offa us and don’t pay me shit. Rob, my boss, is 32 and he owns this place and the Super8 next door.”
“So what. Good for him. Where do you hear this shit from? Some racist radio dick? Indians get money? Just Indians? What about Pakistanis and Sri Lankans? It’s all some government conspiracy to replace white Americans with brown folks?What about the Hondurans you got working here? They get free money too? I bet my Grandparents would like some of that free money.”
“It’s because our government has a deal with their government. I’m telling you. Check it out. ” [Link]
[That is edited down – Coach corrected her about how Hawaiians are not desis]
I suspect that the people who own the motels that say “American owned” are very much like the person Coach was talking to. When they do well, they think it’s because of talent, but when they do poorly, it’s because the deck is stacked against them.
Related posts elsewhere: What *WAS* wrong with the picture?
Good post. I’m not patronizing any such places either (tho, from the looks of those signs, not sure I would be even without the racist bs).
Thanks for highlighting an issue I’ve been debating with friends for close to 2 years now. My first encounter with the “American Owned” sign was on the roads of Kentucky, and I immediately prickled at what it was connotating. Kentucky has a large number of Indian-owned hotels and there was no doubt in my mind that the sign was speaking directly to those who know of that.
My most recent encounter happened in a rural town in South Carolina. I was with friends white water rafting and I went to a local Ingles (http://www.ingles-markets.com/)which had the word emblazoned as part of the building in huge block letters. I wrote to the company via their website to complain about the sign, but received no reply.
This is a great post…It seems in America you’re not allowed to be openly racist to anyone unless they are foreigners or resident aliens. If the signs had said “White Owned†I think more people would care. But Americans are taught to feel superior and “stick to our own†(buying American cars, keeping jobs in America). There is definitely a deeper racism involved in advertising “American Owned†but I’m sure some might disagree its racism because they have bought into “buy Americanâ€.
Good point, Natasha. I also refuse to buy American, but I didn’t get into that in the post.
CLARIFICATION: It’s not that I refuse to buy American made goods, it’s that I refuse to buy things just because they were made in America. That is, I refuse to “Buy American.” I don’t care where something is made per se (although I do care about working conditions), it has no moral weight to me that something is made in America versus Canada or wherever else.
the motel employee quoted in the last excerpt seems “special” — i say this only in bemused earnest.
Doesn’t everybody? Which is why one should always fear populism.
reminds me of the “buy american” campaigns of yore. it’s unamerican. if you whine about not being able to compete with foreigners, get out of my country. america is about freedom. love it or leave it.
Sorry this may sound stupid, but its a honest question. I’m clueless about this stuff.
Do Indian and Indian-Americans (as well as other Asians) really get grants/”free money” from the government when trying to set up a bussiness? Is it a minority thing or an immigrant thing?
thanks
Its about as racist as the “Be Indian, Buy Indian” campaigns they run back in the desh.
Let’s get out the Patel owned signs, I say!
This entire outsourcing and nativist paranoia seems very similar to the ruckus about how those tiny Japanese would dominate America in the late 80s and early 90s.
Probably from Sen Obama’s campaign staff.
yeah, i remember those days. lester thurow was pushing for more central economic plannig. buchanan was having a fit, and somebody (maybe fukiyama) said: “the cold war is over, and Japan won.”
You should take a look at what Santosh had to say about it, too.
CMF on July 17, 2007 02:45 PM · Direct link
Its about as racist as the “Be Indian, Buy Indian” campaigns they run back in the desh.
I tend to stay in cheap motels ( < $50 pp ) quite often. “American Owned” to me simply means it won’t smell of curry. The other kind always does. Ofcourse if you are willing to spend more than fifty you’ll always get a non-smelly motel, but I don’t have that kind of money.
Katie,
my guess is that this guy was confusing Indian-Americans with American-Indians. There may be programs in place to help the latter.
can’t post nomore on SM. anonyproxy ate prev comment. why the ban ?
No it isn’t. “Be Indian, Buy Indian” didn’t proscribe doing business with legal residents of other nationalities who lived amongst us and paid taxes just like us. It just meant buy what was locally produced.
7, 15:
It’s a pain having to go down to the Indian-American Grants Office every month to pick up my check (haven’t these people heard of direct deposit?), but the $$ sure helps me lord it over the rest of the Americans.
(snark off)
My boyfriends mother is from Hawaii and she got a grant from the government. Free money, shit…
If you are native Hawaiian and are living in Hawaii, then you probably do get benefits from the state govt. Not sure about the Feds.
I grew up in a VERY small town on Route 66. Most of the motels in town were Indian owned…but of the few remaining ones, one owner (an elderly Caucasian couple) decided to advertise that it was not owned by Indians. Until they passed away, they wanted to attract the “American” people. It was strange growing up in such a mixed town full of Native Americans, desis, Spanish, Mexicans, and first generation Europeans that there were people like them around still. Maybe they feared us? My family experienced some customers who would come in and take one look at the brown skin and walk back out. My parents would shrug it off. Now that I think about it, where would these customers have gone? They would have to go through many of the motels to find that “white” owner they were looking for.
Katie, the answer is “No”. Neither Asians or Indians (i.e. people from India) get government money to setup shop. Family and friends pool money to get started and go to commercial lending institutions for the remainder just like anyone else. They work their asses off, and in most cases the entire family is contributing labor to make things run.
i forget the details, but there’s a humongous hawaiian trust set up many decades ago to benefit indigenous hawaiians. something to do with some monarchy, i think. but i know the trust is loaded. sorry for the generalizations but i’m sure you can google the details
louiecypther:
Thanks for answering. I didn’t think Indians got grants because I never heard any Indian people talking about them, but I wasn’t sure. But then who are these grants reserved for? Native Americans and Black Americans, I’m guessing?
I know this is horrible stereotyping and elitism, but I’ll make an unvarnished comment: I am always amazed at the fortitude of these motel owners who probably came to this country well into their 20s or whatever, are doing quite a thankless and tiresome job, but both because of geography and economics probably attract a clientele that exhibits a disproportionate amount of racism and various strains of bigotry. Even a few days’ worth of interaction with people who have such views is often excruciating for me, and I can’t even conceive what it must mean to deal with this day in and day out, for years on end.
Who’s this coach guy?
See the first quote.
Katie, I’m not sure what you are referring to without a link to the program. I’m not sure what’s out there in terms of programs for African-Americans or Native-Americans/Hawaiins, but even as someone who is somewhat conservative I am not opposed to special consideration for encouraging business growth in those communities. Before we get sidetracked, what’s your opinion on subject matter of this post regarding hotel owners coding for their race in signs?
http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/gettingfinancing/article52012.html http://www.medweek.gov/
Don’t you mean racism/nativism/nationalism? You should meet some cosmopolitan populists, you’ll like them.
Three posts from Ennis! I’m in heaven.
I don’t think we should fault the desi motel owners for putting “American Owned” on their signs, especially if they’re losing business to a competitor. What are they expected to do? Just hope that everyone boycotts the “American owned” places?
Buchanan is always having a fit, and Fukuyama is an idiot. Thurow was the surprise, although it led to some memorable fights with Paul Krugman. Krugman wades into some of this in his book, “Pop Internationalism“. Great read.
30-Md
What do you think would happen when potential customers (seeing “american owned”) walked in and saw brown people running the desks? I highly doubt they would think “oh, what the heck-I’m here anyway” and put down money for a room. Point being- desis will lose money either way if they are not wanted in a particular area.
On another note-has anyone noticed the wacko comments under the first picture (Dogwood Motel) in Flickr?
Thanks Blah. I’m not sure how people conflate loans for small businesses with “free money”. I’ve never had to apply for a small business loan in less forward thinking parts of the US, but I have heard there are race related asymmetries in loan decisions.
MD wrote:
It’s not the Desi motel owners that Ennis is faulting–those who put up those signs are white caucasians using a form of “subtle racism” to lure business their way.
his post says otherwise
Don’t they have to be citizens?
We had the exact same discussion over at UD a few months ago.
Another case of being wrongfully stereotyped? I for one think so.
Let me clarify. For the same reasons as raised by others, I think it is highly unlikely that these signs are put up by desis. “American owned and operated” is a way of saying “we’re not brown”. If people who respond to that sign walk into a motel and see a brown face, they’re not likely to be persuaded by discussions of naturalization and citizenship. For that reason, the only people who are likely to put the sign up are non-browns, most likely white, motel owners.
That said, EVEN IF the sign was put up by a brown motel owner, I would still refuse to give it my business.
p.s. Rani who does the use of “if” in my post indicate that I think these signs are put up by brown moteliers?
What if we did up all the Patel owned motels as Kwik-e-marts?
This may be the origin of the Hawaiian money comment:
As an aside, everybody who lives in Alaska gets money too – it’s oil money that goes into a trust:
However, there is no money that goes to Indians (those from India, not Native Americans) from the US Government. That person was just ignorant, that’s why I included her remarks.
CMF – are you defending the “American Owned and Operated” signs by making reference to the Swadesi movement? I hope not.
For one thing, people generally acknowledge a difference between immigrants to ones country and people outside. For example, it’s not legal to discriminate based on national origin, but we impose trade tariffs and restrictions all the time (it may not be smart, but nobody says it’s completely immoral). I happen to dislike nativist campaigns of most forms, but I don’t think they’re the same as racial discrimination in America.
Second, and more importantly, the swadesi campaign happened in a context of occupation, where Indian industry was destroyed by a colonial power in order to force Indians to buy cloth from UK producers. It wasn’t simple nativism, it was a refusal to be coerced, much like the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. Very different from “American owned” or even from “Buy American.”
“I also refuse to buy American, but I didn’t get into that in the post.”
I almost blew my cappucino through my nose on that one. shoot–my Saturn saved my life on the beltway recently. i also found some nice madeinamerica underwear that got me downright nostalgic.
For a fleeting second, I thought…glass houses and all that jazz,…but then I tried to understand, because isn’t that what life is all about? yours truly “American” will choose an Indian-people-run motel over an “American” if it appears to promise better accommodations, service, amenities, convenience, etc., but then we are talking capitalism perhaps more than racism, because, of course, nobody on this blog would choose a motel based on the race of the owner/manager.
I do get it about the “American Owned” signs, because so many Indians own/manage motels/hotels and it is a personal affront to you. Still, most whites–oh, 70-80% maybe, especially if they are employed–do realize that skin color is not a criteria for citizenship and there are all kinds of Americans. If the standards are good, people of all hues will come, as they do to Jewish doctors and Chinese acupunturists. These things run on reputation. As for luring business their way–this is capitalism. In time, you will lure the people you want doing it your way. I’ve seen all ethnic groups try to lure customers their way by manipulating loyalities, expectations, comfort-level, insecurities. You think whites don’t like desis? Confession: a lot of whites think Indians don’t like them. View them negatively. Misunderstand them. Don’t trust them. Don’t care about them. Sad, i know, but there it is.
So dear friends, carry on with your boycott of American-made, if you want. That’s capitalism and it’s a free country. But I fear those rather silly motel America signs will not come down anytime soon. They are signs of the times. Sad.
WOAH – let me clarify – I should go back and edit. It’s not that I refuse to buy American made goods, it’s that I refuse to “Buy American”, i.e. buy things because they are made here and not somewhere else. For one thing, the campaign is stupid – production is too globalized for the label “Made in America” to make much sense. Secondly, it has no moral weight to me that something is made here and not there. Sure, working conditions are important to me, as are environmental conditions, but that’s very different from narrow nativism.
Ruhul #24 –
I know this is horrible stereotyping and elitism, but I’ll make an unvarnished comment: I am always amazed at the fortitude of these motel owners who probably came to this country well into their 20s or whatever, are doing quite a thankless and tiresome job, but both because of geography and economics probably attract a clientele that exhibits a disproportionate amount of racism and various strains of bigotry. Even a few days’ worth of interaction with people who have such views is often excruciating for me, and I can’t even conceive what it must mean to deal with this day in and day out, for years on end.
My parents have invested in some motels and one of them is a very crap motel. They want to hold onto it b/c the land is worth a lot. I understand where you are coming from Rahul, but I actually don’t know if anyone is more racist than anyone else. Having worked in the motel as a maid, b/c my parents were punishing me, as a teenager, I have spent some time in that motel. I worked at the desk and worked with other maids, cleaning rooms.
I’ll say this about the clientele or the workers at the motels – like I said, I don’t know if anyone is more racist than a rich racist in the metro city I now live in, but the thing that bothered me was that motel clientele and workers’ education was not good, so I would get flustered with some questions.
The other thing is, from my experience, many of the desis who run such motels don’t have professional degrees and not much education themselves. But what I think must be difficult or interesting is that both cultures – rural white or black Americans most with just high school education meeting rural desis – are generally ignorant of each others’ cultures.
In the motel we own it’s just amazing to see these cultures interacting – the handy-man (a white rural man who gets drunk practically every night) arguing with Amit, the motel manager b/c he wants to get off work so he can start his drinking, in the motel lobby which has an odd combination of deerheads, and various Hindu gods, a pooja side room where you can smell the burning incense….it’s amazing that these two, one with a strong Southern rural accent, and the other with a strong rural Gujarti accent, arguing it out.
But for the motel owner/manager – they can make a lot of money…Amit, who has a hs education from india, makes a ton of more money than me, with my masters. So I guess they feel it is worth the sacrafice….at least they don’t have to work under the horrible labor conditions like in Saudi.
mia said:
I think there is racism and it is used commercially in the motel business by some motel owners, yes. I’ve linked to a discussion of it.
It’s also racist and unamerican. I wont respond to people who say “Spend your money here, we’re white”
I’m sure you’ve seen Ashley Judd play a maid in a desi owned motel with raags and everything going on in the background.
No kidding. That’s not capitalism..that’s racism.
Thanks, PS. I was admittedly painting with a Texas-sized brush there.
This isn’t just exclusive to motels. I’ve also seen these signs on gas stations and convenience stores all over the place in Florida.
“American Owned”??
Argh.
Suggestions for alternate signs:
“Bigot Owned” “Inbred Banjo-Player Owned” “Customers With Purty Mouths Welcome” “We Don’t Want Your Filthy Foreign Money” “Positively NO Swedish Owners” “Git Off Mah Property!” ;-P