Inspired By Oregon - Ashland, Oregon

G H.

On 11-11-24 I came to see the opening of the new store in hopes of buying Christmas gifts. I was quickly saddened and irritated that my mother and I were being followed by a worker named Sheri— a worker in her late 50's, shorter and heavier set.

I am a Hispanic/native person and noticeably so. The entirety of the hour I spent in the store she followed us to every single corner and pretended to "adjust" things. Every time I would look at other items on another end of the store, she would follow me and repeat this pattern. My mother was watching her follow me and I would see her trail back to watch my mom who was not too far from me. She would grab a coat off a rack or an item off a shelf and then place it back or run her fingers along the coats as if she were fixing them. There were about 15+ people in the store and we noticed she was only following us.

I chose to ignore this ignorant behavior and was looking at the earrings at the center counter of the store. I noticed another brown gentleman (not sure of his ethnicity) walk in and began looking at the hats that are at the right side of the store going in from the outside. I was staring at her watching the man innocently try on hats in the mirror. She went up on her tiptoes to look at him from the other side of a rack that was between them. Then she went away from standing near me at the counter and went to follow him instead. I noticed her doing the same thing she did to us, pretend to fix things and glance over at him while doing so.

This angered me far more because she was only following us because we are not white! She is discriminating us based on color, by assuming we are going to steal or other horrible things. After she watched him for a few minutes she came back to where my mom and I were. She noticed us watching her and fake smiled at us because at this point, I stopped looking at the items and we were shocked, watching her assume this man was a thief, she same as she had done to us.

I went up to the man and told him that I had just watched the lady go on her tiptoes and watch him, then go over and pretend to fix things and glance at him consistently. I told him she also did the same to us and we had watched her not do it to anyone else. And because of that, we were leaving and not going to give any more of our business to the Paddington stores because this seems to be a pattern. More so with this lady, but I've experienced it plenty before when I've purchased from paddington stores in Ashland. He was also saddened and shocked by this and said he was also going to leave with us if that's how they're treating us. We all left together.

I went back inside because I hadn't gotten the individuals name and I went to go see her name tag. She was talking to another worker, but noticed and said "hi". I heard as I was leaving that they said "....wanted to see the name tag."

I request that whoever is in charge take a look at the security footage and show us all that she was not just following the nonwhite individuals.

I will never shop at paddington again. It is sickening that people like that are constantly hired. I am tired of being treated like a criminal when I mind my own business and only want to buy gifts. There are many items that are native textile inspired and somehow I am a criminal, unable to look at things that remind me of my people without being stereotyped and discriminated against as a shopper.

Steve S.

Henry P.