For an older generation of Asian Americans, spotting the faux brushstroke lettering can trigger past traumas.
"I think of words in anti-Asian or anti-Japanese signs," wrote Japanese American journalist Gil Asakawa, who began his career during a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment or "Nipponophobia" in the 1980s. "I see (the font) Wonton and I see the words 'Jap,' 'nip,' 'chink,' 'gook,' 'slope.' I can't help it. In my experience, the font has been associated too often with racism aimed at me."
But can a font, in itself, truly be racist?
In 19th-century Germany, using a calligraphic blackletter typeface called Fraktur was considered as an expression of nationalism. German books were printed in this gothic-style font, despite being hard to read. The Nazi party then embraced Fraktur -- it was even used on the cover of Adolf Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kampf" -- before suddenly banning the font in 1941 and categorizing it as Judenlettern ("Jewish letters").
Yet, there are also examples of fonts harmlessly evoking national or regional pride. Take the distinctive Euskara lettering, used throughout the seven provinces of the Basque County, and deployed on everything from monuments to restaurant menus. The "large-footed, big-eyed, Roman-styled characters," as a 19th-century chronicler of the region's monuments once described them, emerged during the pinnacle of Basque nationalism in the late 1800s.
It's worth noting that, in 1930s America, some Chinese immigrants themselves used chop suey fonts on their restaurant signs, menus, and advertisements, as a way to heighten the exotic appeal of their establishments.
And "Oriental simulation fonts" (or letterforms designed with aesthetic markers of a particular culture) didn't just approximate Chinese calligraphy. Decorative fonts like El Dorado or Taco Salad were designed to represent Mexico. The same goes for the Pad Thai font, which borrows strokes from the Thai script. Similarly, there are a host of crude, hand-drawn fonts purporting to capture the aesthetic of the entire African continent.
Shaw said that the persistence of ethnic types, as offensive as they appear to some, lies in their graphic efficiency. They survive "for the simple reason that stereotypes, though crude, serve a commercial purpose," he wrote. "They are shortcuts, visual mnemonic devices. There is no room for cultural nuance or academic accuracy in a shop's fascia."