The logo of the Banh mi Shop restaurant in Dallas displays a prominent red star in front of the building.
No one would think twice about the emblem. But since the restaurant serves only Vietnamese cuisine, the five-point red star has changed from eye-catching sign to communist eyesore.
Vietnamese people in the local area are offended that the restaurant had overlooked the significance of the design.
Any Vietnamese or Vietnamese-American knows the horrible stories that relatives or people they know have experienced under Vietnamese communist regime. The red star for Vietnam is the equivalent of the swastika for Germany.
And the five-point star shines right on SMU Boulevard.
Students in the Asian community at SMU have responded to the incident.
Asian Council Executive member and junior Eric Hoang comments on the incident.
“I think it was ignorant that the people in charge didn’t do more research before creating their logo,” Hoang said.
Sophomore Mandaline Kam contradicts Hoang’s statement.
She doesn’t believe it was fully ignorance, but the assumption that the Vietnamese community as a whole were accepting of the flag of their country.
“I don’t think it was intentionally meant to antagonize Vietnamese-Americans. With the flag being the national symbol of Vietnam currently, I just think the people used that idea for their logo without thinking,” Kam said.
Outside of SMU, the Vietnamese-American Community of Greater Dallas has signed a petition, led by Thanh Cung to change the logo.
Cung stated in the petition to Yum’s senior vice president Jonathan Blum, “the Vietnamese-American community in the area are hurt and offended by your chosen logo, a red star, which is a symbol of communism and will offend thousands of South Vietnamese refugees in my community.”
Blum posted a response letter stating an apology and an agreement to change their logo as well as taking down any other adornments similar to the communist star.
He stated, “it was never our intent to offend anyone, but we see we have made a mistake and in hindsight, we should have recognized this logo could be offensive.”
