A restaurant owner in New Jersey says the targets of a racist flyer were manufactured by eight people, including one of the targets themselves.
The flyers titled Make Edison Great Again surfaced three years ago and featured the photos of two Asian American school board candidates with the word “deport” stamped on their faces-Jerry Shi and Falguni Patel.
According to My Central New Jersey, a report by the US Postal Inspector names eight people who allegedly created the flyer-including one of the school board candidates targeted on the flyer- Jerry Shi.
Both Shi and Patel ended up being elected.
“At first the flyer looks as if it comes from some hate group and we thought that might be the case, but when we brought in the people and interviewed people the testimony didn’t point that way,” said Edison Township Councilman Bob Diehl to NBC New York.
Shi denied he was involved in creating the flyer.
“I Jerry Shi, have never been to Chowpatty with boxes/racist flyers. Chandrakant Patel’s claim of me delivering of putting stamps or labels on racist flyers is flat out lie.”
Patel is the chairman of the Indian Business Association and owner of Chowpatty Restaurant . He says he saw six of the eight come to his restaurant to work on the flyer.
Diehl says more people will be interviewed. Supporters of Falguni Patel and Shi point out that the Indian Business Association actively campaigned for Patel and Shi’s competitor in this year’s election and called the allegation politically motivated.
(An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Falguni Patel had also been accused of planning and mailing the flyers. We apologize for the error)
AsAmNews has Asian America in its heart. We’re an all-volunteer effort of dedicated staff and interns. Check out our new Instagram account. Go to our Twitter feed and Facebook page for more content. Please consider interning, joining our staff, or submitting a story.
