Neighbors upset over sign that read, 'Chinese, keep your dogs off my grass'

EL MONTE, Calif. -- A sign posted in an El Monte neighborhood caused an uproar after a Filipino family said it's racist.

Sisters Alexis and Rose Anne Yu said they walk their dogs Cascay and Daisy up and down their street every night.

But on Monday, the sisters said they noticed a new sign along their route that read, "Chinese, keep your dogs off my grass."

"I don't understand. Why would you write something like that? And to direct it to a race for that matter," Alexis Yu said.

In tiny print in the upper right hand corner the sign read, "Respect your neighbors."

"When I looked at it closely I was like, 'Oh, no,'" Alexis Yu recalled. "So I took out my phone, took a picture of it right away and actually emailed it to the El Monte (police) department to let them know what was going on."

Eyewitness News spoke to the man who placed the sign in his yard and he said he was trying to communicate with specific dog owners in his neighborhood who aren't picking up after their pets.

"I'm not being racist or anything, I'm being specific," William Alarcon said. "The Hispanic woman was doing it and I spoke to her and she stopped doing it."

Alarcon said he's Native American and there were some neighbors who understood his sign.

"I spoke to one guy over there and he wasn't upset," Alarcon said. "He said, 'OK, they do the same to me.' He's Asian and they do the same to him."

Police said they were looking into the matter.

UPDATE: Eyewitness News learned Wednesday afternoon that the sign had been taken down.