FTA:

Long before Springfield residents, neo-Nazis and others spread rumors about Haitians, other Americans told tales of immigrants eating pets. "Do not too easily accept the statement . . . that Asian refugees barbecue pet dogs here all the time,'" wrote Jan Harold Brunvand, professor emeritus at the University of Utah, in 1986.

Brunvand identified stories from the 1980s about Asian refugees eating pets that emerged in Salt Lake City, Utah, Stockton, California, Fairfax, Virginia and elsewhere. "Evidence was supposedly found in garbage cans, and people had heard about Vietnamese wanting to buy puppies or kittens to use for food," wrote Brunvand in his book The Mexican Pet, one of several books he authored compiling folklore or urban legends. (Journalist Brandy Zadrozny found a 1987 article on the topic.)

Brunvand noted there is typically a racial element to the rumors. "These examples of modern folklore are similar to earlier stories about pet remains found in garbage cans behind Chinese restaurants."

As if anticipating the current urban legend about Haitians and pets in Springfield, Ohio, Brunvand writes, "Another common twist is the notion that there has been a recent rash of missing pets in the community; the statistics on such crimes, dug up by some enterprising reporter, usually prove to be normal."

Another good article on the topic:

Immigrants-eat-pets trope is a century-old stereotype and 'very old racism'

When May-lee Chai was in high school in the early 1980s, a Chinese restaurant finally opened in the small South Dakota town where her family lived.

"The food was delicious!" remembered Chai, now a creative writing professor at San Francisco State University.

But when her parents invited friends to lunch there, they always politely declined. Rumor was they'd be served stray cats and dogs.

Though the rumor was totally false, the owners, who had fled from the Communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, eventually had to sell their business and move away, Chai told USA TODAY.