Hate ‘Was There All the Time’
Racist graffiti latest sign of tension in N.J. town
By Jason Ma

I’nchol Yon opened up his computer store on the morning of Oct. 20 to find “Go Home” spray painted in big letters on his Broad Avenue storefront in Palisades Park, N.J. Later that day, town residents found similar graffiti spray-painted on a highway overpass.

“Frankly, I’m pissed off,” said Yon, who is president of the Palisades Park Chamber of Commerce, made up mostly of Korean American business owners. “It was there all this time. Finally they expressed it.”

Tensions in the small town of 15,000 people only a few miles from New York City have been festering ever since Korean Americans, many relocating from Queens, began buying real estate around Broad Avenue more than five years ago. Korean Americans now make up about a third of the town’s population.

Korean Americans own 90 percent of the businesses on what is now the main commercial strip of the town, revitalizing a once-dormant area. But even as their businesses contribute $21 million in annual tax revenues for the city -- about half of the total -- some residents have become increasingly resentful.

In 1996, the town passed a law mandating that all business signs written in a foreign language must also have equally sized translations in English. A federal court struck down that law in July 1997.

According to Yon, 39, a small but vocal group of residents is concerned that Korean American-owned businesses, especially karaoke rooms, will turn Palisades Park into the “Las Vegas of the East” by running alcohol-serving establishments all night. The Chamber of Commerce, however, has insisted that most members do not want to stay open all hours.

Still, the city in 1996 passed an ordinance that required all businesses to close at 3 a.m., but let the “American-style” Golden Eagle Diner continue staying open 24 hours.

A federal judge threw out that ordinance Oct. 1, saying that while it was not racially discriminatory, the curfew had a “disparate impact.” The City Council met Oct. 19 to discuss plans for a revised curfew; during the debate that ensued, some audience members yelled out to Korean Americans: “If you don’t like this town, go back to your country,” according to Yon, who was present as the meeting.

The next day Yon discovered the grafitti painted on the window of his retail store, Safenet Computer, at 121 Broad Ave. and more grafitti on the overpass of Route 46, the main thoroughfare into the town.

Yon said both the graffiti and the curfew were part of a pattern of intolerance directed at Korean Americans. “It’s all related,” he said.

Palisades Park Mayor Sandy Farber, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, has been quoted as saying that the city’s curfew is designed to prevent quality-of-life erosions that late-night businesses might foment. However, the mostly Korean and Korean American Palisades Park Chamber of Commerce has opposed any curfew, saying that most businesses would close at 9 p.m. even without an ordinance.

On Oct.27, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund held a press conference with the Anti-Defamation League to denounce the grafitti, but AALDEF made clear that it would not take a stance on any curfew.

“We don’t want to support one side or the other on the curfew issue,” said AALDEF program director Stanley Mark. “We don’t want to get pulled into local politics. The curfew itself isn’t an issue. It’s a local planning issue.” Rather, Mark explained that his group is hoping that increased scrutiny on Palisades Park will deter overt racism there and elsewhere.

Moreover, Mark said that not all Korean Americans -- especially parents -- agree with the Palisades Park Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to the curfew, a revised version of which could be adopted Nov. 23. The mostly Korean and Korean American business group has promised a turnout of as many as 3,000 people at a rally that day.

“The kind of tension is such that it’s moved beyond bad feeling and into action,” Mark said. “We’re worried it’s going to more of a higher level.”

To that end, AALDEF is circulating a petition asking Palisades Park police to conduct a thorough investigation. Moreover, on Wednesday AALDEF asked the Department of Justice to intervene. Officers have yet to make any arrests. For his part, Yon is skeptical of local law enforcement, saying that police did not contact him until after AALDEF’s press conference, a week after the graffiti was discovered.