Asian American Penn student says Center City Taco Bell cashier used racial slur to describe him

In the wee hours of the morning Saturday, In Young Lee was just trying to satisfy his hunger with a couple of Doritos Locos Tacos.

He got what he was after. But he says he also got a mouthful from two Taco Bell employees, one of whom described him with a racial epithet on a receipt.

Lee, who was born in South Korea, said he visited the Taco Bell at 1037 Chestnut St. in Center City around 1:30 a.m. after a night out with friends. When the cashier asked Lee's name for the order, he responded, "Steve." Lee,  a first-year Ph.D. student at Penn Medicine, explained that he often uses a westernized name rather than spelling out his actual name, for the sake of "convenience."

When he looked at his receipt, he saw he'd been listed as "Steve Ch—," a slur for Chinese people that was once part of a controversial name for a cheesesteak joint in Northeast Philly. It also got the Sixers' JJ Redick in the news over the weekend.

After ordering his food, Lee, 25, said he noticed the receipt and was immediately "very upset." He confronted the cashier, who Lee said initially was defensive and told him there were multiple "Steves" in the restaurant at the time, and he needed to differentiate among them. When Lee replied, "That's ridiculous," the cashier apologized, Lee said. It seemed the episode was over.

Lee snatched his tacos from another employee's hand and sat down with friends to eat. That's when he overheard a group of employees laughing behind the counter, and one used the slur again, he said.

Lee confronted the workers at the counter, and a manager approached. The man apologized for the situation, Lee recalled, but also told him the way he grabbed his food from another employee was "disrespectful." By this time, other customers got involved, standing up for Lee. The manager apologized again.

"Everyone was really upset," Lee said. "I don't understand how he expects me to be polite after this person just called me a derogatory slur."

Lee posted about the ordeal on Facebook less than two hours after it happened, prompting the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn's student newspaper, to publish a story about the incident Sunday.

A spokesperson for Taco Bell Corp. said the franchisee was "looking into" the matter and "will take swift and appropriate action." The company did not respond to questions about whether the employee has been identified or has been disciplined.

Lee said he purposefully blurred out the name of the cashier on the receipt he posted to Facebook because he doesn't want the man to lose his job. Instead, he said, he just wants him to understand "that racial slurs have implications and the meaning behind things can really hurt people."

"I was just very surprised that people think about me that way," he said, "that they categorize me as this derogatory thing."