To the head of the Campus Recreation of DePaul University,

The DePaul Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Club has recently posted content of their new jerseys and hats. These images showcase designs that were created by their old captain Eric Swan. The design on the jerseys consists of the word “duck,” in Japanese, “ahiru,” using the Japanese alphabet katakana. This is an act of cultural appropriation as the team has used a part of Japanese culture as an aesthetic to profit off of, literally selling the hats to the general public for 23$. If this design had been in a truly good faith of trying to “appreciate” Japanese culture/anime, the team would have taken the care needed to make sure they knew what was actually being put on the hats/jerseys. Above, you can see two posts the team made on their instagram, the one posted first claims that the word on their hat is pronounced “da” “ku,” which they likely wished would correlate with their acronym, DUC (DePaul Ultimate Club); however, this is not the case. In the second post, the pronunciation is corrected, to “ahiru,” the Japanese word for duck, and the actual word on their hats. Earlier, when we had reached out to the team, we were told they consulted a friend who spoke fluent Japanese, but judging by their posts,  it seems as though they still had no sense of what their hats and jerseys truly said. This mistake is completely ridiculous, considering the fact that we now have so many APIDA (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American) orgs on campus. The team could have easily reached out to the multiple Japanese clubs affiliated with DePaul, JTable, JMAC, etc… and asked to collaborate on the design together, which, no doubt, would have resulted in an error-free design, and validated their claim of “appreciating Japanese culture and anime.” As we are writing this, we have gotten word that the Ultimate team has reached out to Japan Table through email, asking what they could have done better in the design of their jerseys (01/22/2020); however, this action should have been taken WELL before the jersey/hat project was even started (their first instagram post mentioning the design was posted on 11/26/2019, more than a month before reaching out to JTable). In their email to Japan Table, they express, “there are some individuals who are upset that we used Japanese characters. We are trying to better understand what we could have done better in this situation.,” while the gesture seems to be in good faith, if the team critically thought about the implications of their design and the appreciation of Japanese culture, they would have reached out earlier. Consulting Japan Table at such a late stage within the design process (they already have their jerseys and hats made) is certainly a form of damage control. This is not cultural appreciation. This culture that the team has “bonded” over and love so much is the same culture that tore so many Japanese diaspora families apart during the World War II internment of Japanese people. This culture that they are using and profiting off of is one that has historically and is currently being erased and taken away from actual Japanese diaspora. This act of cultural appropriation is very insensitive and offensive, and we, the Asian America Pacific Islander Desi American diaspora students and allies of DePaul ask that the DePaul Men’s Ultimate Frisbee team stop using that design and issue a public, sincere apology. It is unfortunate that this petition has to even be sent as communities of color are constantly being appropriated from, but we want the DUC team to understand why we are so deeply hurt by this design. We are not your cultural education or aesthetic to bond over. 

Best,

APIDA Sisterhood Uprising, Friends, and Allies