Rumor of immigrants eating cats, dogs in Ohio points to ‘old racism’

Rumor of immigrants eating cats, dogs in Ohio points to ‘old racism’

When May-lee Chai was in high school in the early 1980s, a Chinese restaurant finally opened in the small South Dakota town where her family lived.

“The food was delicious!” remembered Chai, now a creative writing professor at San Francisco State University.

But when her parents invited friends to lunch there, they always politely declined. Rumor was they’d be served stray cats and dogs.

Though the rumor was totally false, the owners, who had fled from the Communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, eventually had to sell their business and move away, Chai told USA TODAY.

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