January 16, 2026 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, former Las Vegas Sands executive Mike Leven shares how an unlikely partnership helped launch the Asian American Hotel Owners Association in the 1980s. After hearing stereotypes inside the hotel industry about Indian American franchisees, Leven asked for the data and found their properties performed like everyone else, often better. Working with hotel owner H. P. Rama and organizer Lee Duschoff, he helped form an association to fight discrimination, improve access to financing, and claim a rightful place in American hospitality.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories and up next.
You've heard from him before, and by the way, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and you can hear Mike
Levin tell all kinds of stories, not just about his life,
but stories you can apply to yours. And that's why
we have him tell them. Mike was the president and
chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Google is
(00:31):
Singapore Casino. Look at what he built, and look at
what he did in Las Vegas. The number of jobs
he created, the options for Americans or people around the
world to go to a great resort and enjoy some
gambling and some entertainment and have it be safe and
clean up. Next, Mike tells the story about he, a
Jewish man, helped start the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.
(00:56):
It's a heck of a story. Take it away, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Fast forward to nineteen eighty five. I get the days
in job. And the interesting thing about getting the days
in job was that I was referred to Henry Silverman
by a guy that I had been I had fired.
There was a guy named Dick Appleby who was the
sales director of the Americana hotel in New York. He did.
(01:20):
He was not doing a very good job, and I
had to let him go. And a few years later,
I'm sitting in my office at Chicago and I'm on
my way to the airport. I had a trip and
I had these message things. Well, the telephone calls, you know,
you didn't have no cell phones then, and uh. I
go to a pay phone. I call the guy back.
I said, Vic, how are you. I haven't spoken to
(01:41):
you for three or four years.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Why are you calling?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
He said, Well, I'm the sales director for the Tolman
Hunley Company and they're looking for to to recommend somebody
to be the president chief operating officer of days in
and I recommended you. I said, are you would you
be interested? I said, sure, cause we're selling We're selling
the assets of Americana Hotels now. And then I'm not
(02:04):
gonna have a job in a few months. So anyway,
I get the job. And I in order to get
the job, i'd never been in the economy lodging business,
and uh, and I never really be I had some
franchises at Dunefee, We had some Sheridan franchises at Dunfee,
but I never and we had one franchise at Americana,
(02:25):
but I was never really in the franchise business. And
it was very life changing experience too. So I decided
I would go and sit with a consultant who was
at UH, a consulting company.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Guy named Dan Daniellie, who was supposed to be the
guru of economy lodging or it's just like budget hotels,
but you know the the euphemism is economy lodging, you know.
So I go see him and he said, oh yeah.
I said, you know, you have all these curry palaces there.
I said, what's that? He said, well, they're owned by Indians.
(02:59):
I said, what do you mean Indians soup? You know Cherokee,
No Indians from India. Oh window, those all those Indians.
I said to m said you know, so what he says, Well,
apparently UH Heavy Silver and saw Steinber bought days in
in September and it's now uh February of March of
(03:22):
the following year, and they sold off half of these hotels,
many of them to these Indian hotel owners guy's named
Patel and Shah and a few people like that. It's
franchises I said, so, what are you telling me? He says, well,
they're very difficult. Why, well, there's you know, they call
(03:44):
them curry palaces because they live in them and they cook,
so the place smells of curry and the stuff and
that and whatever. You know, once again, the same the
establishment is, you know whatever. He's the guru or the
consulting in this. He's a nice guy too, actually, but
once again, you know, this is the way people would
label things. So I get the days in and I
(04:07):
start meeting with these people, and about six or eight
months later, I hear the same thing inside the company. Well,
the quality scores are down, they don't pay their bills,
they blah blah blah, blah blah blah. So I have
a guy calls comes into my office. A guy calls
me up and name Lee Douchef said, who are you?
(04:28):
He says, I do projects for people. I said, come
and see me. Just out of blue, really nice guy
comes to see me and he says, look, he said, Mike,
I just want to tell you something. If you've got
a project that you can't do, call me, I'll do it.
(04:51):
I said, what do you mean, he said, Well, lots
of times I find that people like to do new
things in companies, but when they try to do it
with the same people, they can't get them done. Well,
that makes sense, so he goes away. Couple months later,
guy shows up my office named hp Rama. There's a
(05:11):
very very serious Hindu. He comes to see me. He said, Mike,
we have problems. We had billboards up that say American
r American owned, which is really derogatory to us because
people are saying, don't stay in a in a Patel
owned hotel or an Indian owned hotel, stuff like that.
We had problems getting loans from traditional companies, and we
(05:34):
can't get franchises from anybody else other than the lowest
end of the poll. And w I I I I
think he had a day's enfranchise to this guy. I said,
I'll look into it. So I I I talked to
Douchev and I said, come see me. But before he
(05:55):
did that, I had my people study a hundred or
so Asian American owned hotels that we had. Give me
the total amount of quality scores, give me the receivables,
give me all the information on honesty on these hotels.
It turns out they're exactly the same as anybody else
(06:16):
in the chain. There was absolutely if anything, they paid better.
I caught Brian Lee and HP we have a meeting,
and I said, let's form an association. Let's call it
the Asian American Hotel Association. HPU, get me another good,
strong Asian guy like yourself, Indian guy like yourself. I'll
(06:37):
set up a board of people with some quote white
people Asian people mixed, and we'll start a trade association
with the mission being to take your rightful place in
the American hotel lodging industry. So I went to Silverman.
(07:02):
I sent need a hundred thousand bucks a budget to
run a little conference, convention, bring it, some speakers, do
some things like that. And then Lee Douchaftshire was to
not only organize it and also helped position the company
and me in the industry with the Asians. So I
(07:22):
marched in the India Independence State Parade in New York City.
I did various things. He got me education. I started
reading the Bagabay Geeta and other stuff, and h I'd
learned more about Hinduism than the average person would ever know.
We set the membership feet at the twenty five dollars
to join the Association. We had a convention and the
(07:43):
other industry people didn't show up to exhibit. I was
accused of doing it for business pe versus anyway, and
he fast forward now twenty thousand members, the biggest trade
show in the hospitality industry. HB. Round became the president
(08:04):
of ah in LA, the American Hotel and Lodging Association
as the first one. They own over fifty percent of
the select service business in the country. Plus they're all
all the sons in the next generation are all massively
successful entrepreneurs. I sit on the board of a Asian
American company. It's worth over a billion dollar company that
they built from one. When I went to Holiday Inn
holiday and no one gave them franchises I had to
(08:26):
get I gave. Once I started to do it, they
all started to do it. They jumped on the bandwagon
and I gave a lot of speeches to Indian groups
and whatever. And the best thing about it is they
never forget. They never forget the Bapooh what is their name, father?
(08:51):
It was a name for Gandhi. They never forgot.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They never forgot Bapoo. That's Mike's nickname. Any Indian hotel,
that's what they call them. And we can all be
bopoo and we can all help the other. And here's
the irony. Mike understood this sting of discrimination and remembering
the sign at the Breaker's hotel that said no Jews allowed.
And by the way, the Jews were the richest per
capita income group in this country despite discrimination, only to
(09:18):
be overcome ten years ago by Indian Americans who were
now number one, fifty percent of all hotel franchises owned
by this small group of Americans. The wealth they of
the massed, understanding capitalism, understanding free enterprise, working hard, risking
and sacrificing the American dream wide open for every religion
(09:40):
and skin color and minority religions like Jews and Hindus.
A beautiful American story. Mike Levin's story Bapoo story here
on our American Stories
And we continue with our American Stories and up next.
You've heard from him before, and by the way, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and you can hear Mike
Levin tell all kinds of stories, not just about his life,
but stories you can apply to yours. And that's why
we have him tell them. Mike was the president and
chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Google is
(00:31):
Singapore Casino. Look at what he built, and look at
what he did in Las Vegas. The number of jobs
he created, the options for Americans or people around the
world to go to a great resort and enjoy some
gambling and some entertainment and have it be safe and
clean up. Next, Mike tells the story about he, a
Jewish man, helped start the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.
(00:56):
It's a heck of a story. Take it away, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Fast forward to nineteen eighty five. I get the days
in job. And the interesting thing about getting the days
in job was that I was referred to Henry Silverman
by a guy that I had been I had fired.
There was a guy named Dick Appleby who was the
sales director of the Americana hotel in New York. He did.
(01:20):
He was not doing a very good job, and I
had to let him go. And a few years later,
I'm sitting in my office at Chicago and I'm on
my way to the airport. I had a trip and
I had these message things. Well, the telephone calls, you know,
you didn't have no cell phones then, and uh. I
go to a pay phone. I call the guy back.
I said, Vic, how are you. I haven't spoken to
(01:41):
you for three or four years.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Why are you calling?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
He said, Well, I'm the sales director for the Tolman
Hunley Company and they're looking for to to recommend somebody
to be the president chief operating officer of days in
and I recommended you. I said, are you would you
be interested? I said, sure, cause we're selling We're selling
the assets of Americana Hotels now. And then I'm not
(02:04):
gonna have a job in a few months. So anyway,
I get the job. And I in order to get
the job, i'd never been in the economy lodging business,
and uh, and I never really be I had some
franchises at Dunefee, We had some Sheridan franchises at Dunfee,
but I never and we had one franchise at Americana,
(02:25):
but I was never really in the franchise business. And
it was very life changing experience too. So I decided
I would go and sit with a consultant who was
at UH, a consulting company.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Guy named Dan Daniellie, who was supposed to be the
guru of economy lodging or it's just like budget hotels,
but you know the the euphemism is economy lodging, you know.
So I go see him and he said, oh yeah.
I said, you know, you have all these curry palaces there.
I said, what's that? He said, well, they're owned by Indians.
(02:59):
I said, what do you mean Indians soup? You know Cherokee,
No Indians from India. Oh window, those all those Indians.
I said to m said you know, so what he says, Well,
apparently UH Heavy Silver and saw Steinber bought days in
in September and it's now uh February of March of
(03:22):
the following year, and they sold off half of these hotels,
many of them to these Indian hotel owners guy's named
Patel and Shah and a few people like that. It's
franchises I said, so, what are you telling me? He says, well,
they're very difficult. Why, well, there's you know, they call
(03:44):
them curry palaces because they live in them and they cook,
so the place smells of curry and the stuff and
that and whatever. You know, once again, the same the
establishment is, you know whatever. He's the guru or the
consulting in this. He's a nice guy too, actually, but
once again, you know, this is the way people would
label things. So I get the days in and I
(04:07):
start meeting with these people, and about six or eight
months later, I hear the same thing inside the company. Well,
the quality scores are down, they don't pay their bills,
they blah blah blah, blah blah blah. So I have
a guy calls comes into my office. A guy calls
me up and name Lee Douchef said, who are you?
(04:28):
He says, I do projects for people. I said, come
and see me. Just out of blue, really nice guy
comes to see me and he says, look, he said, Mike,
I just want to tell you something. If you've got
a project that you can't do, call me, I'll do it.
(04:51):
I said, what do you mean, he said, Well, lots
of times I find that people like to do new
things in companies, but when they try to do it
with the same people, they can't get them done. Well,
that makes sense, so he goes away. Couple months later,
guy shows up my office named hp Rama. There's a
(05:11):
very very serious Hindu. He comes to see me. He said, Mike,
we have problems. We had billboards up that say American
r American owned, which is really derogatory to us because
people are saying, don't stay in a in a Patel
owned hotel or an Indian owned hotel, stuff like that.
We had problems getting loans from traditional companies, and we
(05:34):
can't get franchises from anybody else other than the lowest
end of the poll. And w I I I I
think he had a day's enfranchise to this guy. I said,
I'll look into it. So I I I talked to
Douchev and I said, come see me. But before he
(05:55):
did that, I had my people study a hundred or
so Asian American owned hotels that we had. Give me
the total amount of quality scores, give me the receivables,
give me all the information on honesty on these hotels.
It turns out they're exactly the same as anybody else
(06:16):
in the chain. There was absolutely if anything, they paid better.
I caught Brian Lee and HP we have a meeting,
and I said, let's form an association. Let's call it
the Asian American Hotel Association. HPU, get me another good,
strong Asian guy like yourself, Indian guy like yourself. I'll
(06:37):
set up a board of people with some quote white
people Asian people mixed, and we'll start a trade association
with the mission being to take your rightful place in
the American hotel lodging industry. So I went to Silverman.
(07:02):
I sent need a hundred thousand bucks a budget to
run a little conference, convention, bring it, some speakers, do
some things like that. And then Lee Douchaftshire was to
not only organize it and also helped position the company
and me in the industry with the Asians. So I
(07:22):
marched in the India Independence State Parade in New York City.
I did various things. He got me education. I started
reading the Bagabay Geeta and other stuff, and h I'd
learned more about Hinduism than the average person would ever know.
We set the membership feet at the twenty five dollars
to join the Association. We had a convention and the
(07:43):
other industry people didn't show up to exhibit. I was
accused of doing it for business pe versus anyway, and
he fast forward now twenty thousand members, the biggest trade
show in the hospitality industry. HB. Round became the president
(08:04):
of ah in LA, the American Hotel and Lodging Association
as the first one. They own over fifty percent of
the select service business in the country. Plus they're all
all the sons in the next generation are all massively
successful entrepreneurs. I sit on the board of a Asian
American company. It's worth over a billion dollar company that
they built from one. When I went to Holiday Inn
holiday and no one gave them franchises I had to
(08:26):
get I gave. Once I started to do it, they
all started to do it. They jumped on the bandwagon
and I gave a lot of speeches to Indian groups
and whatever. And the best thing about it is they
never forget. They never forget the Bapooh what is their name, father?
(08:51):
It was a name for Gandhi. They never forgot.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They never forgot Bapoo. That's Mike's nickname. Any Indian hotel,
that's what they call them. And we can all be
bopoo and we can all help the other. And here's
the irony. Mike understood this sting of discrimination and remembering
the sign at the Breaker's hotel that said no Jews allowed.
And by the way, the Jews were the richest per
capita income group in this country despite discrimination, only to
(09:18):
be overcome ten years ago by Indian Americans who were
now number one, fifty percent of all hotel franchises owned
by this small group of Americans. The wealth they of
the massed, understanding capitalism, understanding free enterprise, working hard, risking
and sacrificing the American dream wide open for every religion
(09:40):
and skin color and minority religions like Jews and Hindus.
A beautiful American story. Mike Levin's story Bapoo story here
on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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