Out of Japanese Firm’s Blunder Came a Lesson and Cultural Bridge : Public Relations: Its ‘Little Black Sambo’ products caused a furor in the U.S. But Sanrio reacted atypically and sought out civil rights leaders to help patch up its image.

Immediately after the news hit that a Japanese company was selling Little Black Sambo beachwear and toys in Japan last year, Ron Wakabayashi began getting furious calls from blacks.

One caller to the Japanese American Citizens League national headquarters in San Francisco threatened to circulate racist caricatures of Japanese. Others cursed the JACL national director and hung up. Nobody seemed to realize that Wakabayashi, a home-grown Angeleno, was not responsible for the actions of Japan--the same kind of mistake that landed Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II.

Fed up and fearful, Wakabayashi did something he’d never done before. He made a cold call to the firm, Sanrio Inc., and gave officials a piece of his mind.

To his shock, the maker of “Hello Kitty” toys and other children’s gifts did what was almost unimaginable for a Japanese firm. It swiftly responded.

Thus began an unusual collaboration between a Japanese corporation and Japanese-American civil rights leaders. Stung in the past, many Japanese-Americans have been wary about identifying too closely with Japan, whose actions have occasionally brought them hostility from Americans unable to tell them apart.

But Wakabayashi and others, arguing that self-interest dictates involvement, have helped Sanrio launch a widely heralded program of corporate damage control.

In a sharp departure from the more typical Japanese response to controversy--duck and hide--Sanrio is going well beyond apology. Prodded by the Asian-American activists, officials are directly tackling the problem of cultural ignorance through activities with the black community. The centerpiece is a Children’s Day festival at Loyola Marymount University on Saturday to share Japanese culture with black children.

“From that narrow self-interest--I don’t want people in the black community to take a punch at me or my kids--it has expanded into something broader,” said Wakabayashi, now vice president of public policy at United Way in Los Angeles. “It’s a pioneering effort that most would consider very high risk.”

Sanrio, which maintains that it was unaware of Sambo’s racist implications, has also commissioned a six-part series in its children’s magazine, Strawberry Gazette, to teach Japanese youth about America’s ethnic diversity. Company officials plan to invite several black children to Japan next year in a “little ambassadors” program. And the firm sponsored Christmas gift-giving programs in Los Angeles and Oakland last year.

“We made a mistake, which was really ignorant,” said Kurt Yonezawa, Sanrio executive vice president. “Since our main customers were children, we thought children would be the ones who could be educated to prevent this in the future.”

People such as Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who has tried for years to involve Japanese corporations in the black business sector, praise Sanrio’s efforts. “They’re the only ones who have responded, believe it or not. The other experiences have been horrible,” he said.

Hoping to spread the lesson, the Japan Business Assn. of Southern California invited Yonezawa to hold a seminar on his program. The Carnegie Council asked him to join a panel, and an article on him in the Japan Economic Journal brought him instant celebrity.

But all the whoop-de-do makes Yonezawa a tad nervous.

“I stood out too much,” he said. “To do something new takes real fortitude. Japan is the kind of place where precedent is important.”

Still, Wakabayashi and others say Sanrio was so receptive precisely because it is different from Japan’s more well-known conglomerates. Family-owned and relatively small, Sanrio was founded in 1960 by a poet and novelist, Shintaro Tsuji, with the motto “Small gifts for big smiles.” Employees are constantly lectured that Sanrio sells friendship, not merchandise.

That soft sell, as well as the line of 10,000 children’s items bearing wide-eyed characters, seems to work. Sales in Japan have steadily climbed to $661 million in fiscal year 1989 from $283 million in 1980. In the United States, sales reached $44.6 million this fiscal year, after a three-year reorganization that brought Sanrio’s U.S. operation back from the brink of insolvency. Sanrio maintains 90 major accounts here and 13 direct outlets, called “Gift Gate,” in such shopping malls as Beverly Center and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

And Yonezawa, 44, is not exactly a typical Japanese executive. He was exposed to America’s civil rights era as an exchange student at Stanford University in 1967. He seriously considered moving to America after graduation--to become a country-western singer. In fact, he has cut a record in Nashville, “Columbus Stockade Blues,” whose cover pictures him in a cowboy hat. And no lifetime employment for him: Sanrio is the third company he has worked for.

So when the news hit last July that Sanrio was marketing the Sambo items, the flood of ill will contradicted all the company strived to stand for. Yonezawa maintains that he did not know about the products in Japan.

Although Sanrio had already announced it would recall the products at a cost of $15 million, Yonezawa sensed there would be more fallout.

There was. Wakabayashi’s call brought news of the depth of anger among blacks, a planned meeting of the Black Congressional Caucus over the issue and the harmful impact on Japanese-Americans. But Wakabayashi also brought something more: an offer to help.

Yonezawa’s U.S. law firm had told him it could not help because it wasn’t a legal matter. A U.S. public relations firm that he contacted advised issuing a public statement. He knew no Americans well enough to seek trusted advice. He knew no blacks. He had to consult his dictionary to learn what a congressional “caucus” was.

“It was a really frightening time. We were pulled into an unknown world,” Yonezawa said.

Wakabayashi introduced him to two other community leaders, Georgette Imura, Asian community liaison to Sen. David Roberti (D-Los Angeles), and Don Tamaki, a civil rights attorney in San Francisco. The Japanese-Americans possessed the perspective of racial minorities and some knowledge of Japanese culture, attributes they say led to the markedly different response.

The group brainstormed more creative approaches. Wakabayashi suggested to Yonezawa the need for “the admission of ignorance, the apology and a response that would send a clear message that you’re working on things to remedy the ignorance.”

Yonezawa agreed and got swift approval for the concept from Tsuji in Tokyo and his son, Kunihiko, who directs the U.S. operations. The Japanese-Americans also arranged meetings between Yonezawa and black political leaders Dymally, Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles) and Mel Assagai, Roberti’s chief of staff.

Yonezawa was so nervous before the Assagai meeting that he read 19 books in three days on U.S.-Japan relations, searching for just the right thing to say. He didn’t find any wisdom, but Assagai said he was impressed by the sincerity, anyway.

Not all blacks are entirely satisfied, however.

Some feel that “oh, that’s nice, but what about giving black people jobs in their company?” said Karen Stokes, United Way’s associate director of planning. “What we want to know is what Japanese-owned businesses in America are doing about the high unemployment rate. And do they have room for black people to move up in higher executive roles?”

Among Sanrio’s 200 American employees, six or seven are black, Yonezawa said. Only one is in management. Yonezawa said the firm’s overall minority representation, including Hispanics and Asian-Americans, accounted for the staff majority, however.

The collaboration has been a learning process for all parties.

“To be very honest, my initial reaction was, ‘Oh God, here we go again.’ The Japanese-American community is always having to apologize for something that wasn’t our fault,” Imura said. “But after talking to Kurt, I realized . . . we were also stereotyping all Japanese companies and Japanese nationals who are in the United States.”

Tamaki said he hopes that the Sanrio case will become a model for Japanese firms and an example of how Japanese-Americans can help serve as “cultural translators.”

“When this hit, there was a rush for Japanese-American leaders to condemn it, to distance themselves from it. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but it’s not enough to condemn,” Tamaki said. “I think we have an inherent responsibility to offer assistance--both because we’re in a unique position to do so and because of self-preservation.”

Yonezawa does not want to posture his experience as a lesson for other Japanese firms. In fact, he said, it was acting against normal business interests that brought the program about.

“I thought I should be a Japanese before a Japanese businessman,” Yonezawa said. “As a Japanese businessman, I can do nothing. If I do something which is risky, that may risk my future career.

“But they influenced me to be a Japanese, to take this matter seriously not as a company problem but as a social problem.”