The backlash, Lee would like to note, has come entirely via anonymous online posts and phone calls. Matters escalated after Harrell shared her story to the neighborhood news website, DNAInfo. That day, over three hours, the restaurant received a few dozen prank phone calls. Lee said one man called the restaurant 32 times and told Lee to "watch your back." Another prankster claimed to be from the Ku Klux Klan and was goading Lee into saying something inflammatory against the Chinese. In person, Lee speaks in measured tones about how his mixed heritage codified his views on ethnicity. As someone who wasn't fully Chinese and grew up around Chinese children, he became the butt of jokes. He speaks cogently on the Chinese Exclusion Act, the federal law signed in 1882 that restricted the flow of Chinese immigrants into the United States, and how his elders endured its effects. The people on Yelp crying racism against the restaurant, Lee said, are selective about their outrage.