It’s 2018. Yet somehow we have ended up debating why using a harmful racial stereotype as your business model is a bad idea.

Adelaide’s new Asian gastropub, Hotel Longtime, opened with little fanfare until members of the local Asian community caught wind. The venue boasts a ping pong club room dubbed the “gentleman’s lodge” and neon signs with phrases such as “long time good time”. Alex Fahey had said the name was “all a bit of fun”, and the owners now deny knowledge of the phrases being derogatory.

I started a petition to change the venue name because Asian friends had contacted me feeling shocked, upset and powerless. The phrase echoing in our minds is “me love you long time” which is directly associated with Asian prostitution. You may have heard it – especially if you are of Asian descent, under 40 and grew up in Australia.

You see, I am a half-white, half-Asian female born in Adelaide, who grew up in the era of Pauline Hanson and One Nation, when far right groups had greater freedom in expressing their bigotry. I remember Hanson’s 1996 speech making waves in Australia, with her suggestion that “we are in danger of being swamped by Asians”.

In South Australia the same year, Port Lincoln mayor Peter Davis announced: “If you are a child of a mixed race, particularly Asian-Caucasian or Aboriginal-white, you are a mongrel. That’s what happens when you cross dogs or whatever. I’m not a racist … but I do recognise that cultures are different.”

I was devastated. In a community where nearly everyone was Caucasian, not only was I facing regular hostility towards my Asian heritage, but also hostility towards being a “half-caste”, being told at school, “my mum says you’re a mongrel”.

By teenage years, phrases like “me so horny”, “me love you long time” and “two dollar, sucky sucky” were commonplace. The most famous origin of these epithets is from Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, which depicts the grim realities of war, including the widespread sexual exploitation of local women by western soldiers in Vietnam. But these quotes were quickly taken out of context and entered into popular western lexicon, with little insight as to the origin or the after-effects of military occupation in Asia. Consequently, many people who use these phrases (usually in an “Asian” accent), are unaware of their power.

Early on people used them to tease and humiliate, but as I reached puberty, they took on a more sinister role: to test my response to racially and sexually charged comments. If I reacted negatively, the atmosphere became hostile and I was told it was “just a joke”. If I gave a weak grimace, it was taken as a green light to continue with “I bet your pussy is so tight”, “how much do you cost then?”, or worse.

I craved to be white. Yet I still felt “lucky” to have a western first and last name, because I saw my other Asian friends being abused or excluded even more.

In the case of Hotel Longtime, Alex Fahey’s wife Tin Chu is Vietnamese, having moved to Australia in 2007. This does raise the question as to whether being associated with persons of Asian descent validates the use of a negative stereotype, and yet in other cases of an ethnicity reclaiming a stereotype or slur, it has been through first acknowledging the origin and context, then repurposing it to empower the community. As the owners of Hotel Longtime refute any association with the stereotype, we can rule out that this was their intention.

To perpetuate this is demeaning and sexualising, for Asian women in particular. It is a gateway stereotype that leads to graver long-term consequences, including harassment, abuse, discrimination and an assumption of sexual subservience. The countless experiences of others and myself is proof of that.

I recommend Caroline Wang’s blog A Letter To Asian Girls for deeper insight into the experience of Asian women growing up in Australia.

For a country whose first prime minister said non-white races were “unequal and inferior”, and which has a history of racist policies, it’s not surprising an undercurrent of white imperialism still exists. I hope however, that by sharing stories of the Asian diaspora, we can begin to dismantle harmful stereotypes that affect us on a daily basis.

• Alice Whittington is born, raised and educated in Adelaide. She represented the SA government in London and now works for a record label