Anti-Asian hate incidents escalating across the U.S.
“Please be careful when you go out, there have been attacks on Asian Americans lately,” my mom said to me during my phone call with her on Monday, Feb. 15.
A surge of hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans has taken place recently, and many of these attacks occurred during the week of joyous Chinese New Year celebrations.
Due to COVID-19 originating in Wuhan, China, people have been targeting Asian Americans for causing the pandemic. This is clearly untrue. However, violence motivated by hate against the Asian American community shows that people still haven’t accepted this truth.
Asian Americans and other racial and ethnic minority groups have to worry about and battle against two deadly pandemics: coronavirus and racism. This is a time when people need the most amount of empathy and support. However, minority groups now live in constant fear for their lives.
The violence and anti-Asian hate also originates from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who constantly referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” “Kung Flu” and “Wuhan Virus.” Trump’s use of these slurs during press conferences and interviews reveals his bigotry and ignorance towards Asian Americans. Perpetrators of hate incidents repeat the language used by Trump.
Attacks against elderly Asian Americans, who are the most vulnerable to anti-Asian hate crimes, are occuring from coast to coast. In a Manhattan subway train on Feb. 3, a 61-year-old man was slashed across the face from cheek to cheek on his way to work.
Other elderly Asian Americans have also been brutally assaulted, verbally harassed and robbed by bigots who caused serious injuries to these victims. The attacks have been so violent that volunteers in the San Francisco Bay area now offer to escort elderly residents wherever they may go.
Ever since the pandemic started, about one-third of Asian Americans said they had been subject to racist slurs or jokes. Asian American children are being told to “go back to China,” which is completely inappropriate and intolerable.
Reading about the targeted attacks against Asian Americans has been completely horrifying and frustrating.
Xenophobia and all microaggressions against Asian Americans are unacceptable.
Hate incidents against all Asian Americans, especially children and elders, are unacceptable.
Racism against any minority or underrepresented group is unacceptable.
The racists who witnessed Trump’s racism and carried out these heinous crimes are unequivocally unacceptable.
Russell Jeung, chair of the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University stated that “We see history repeating itself in that Asian Americans are again being cast as the perpetual foreigner who don’t belong, who are diseased, who are threats.”
On March 19, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council, the advocacy organization Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University created the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center to “track and respond to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a memorandum in Jan. 2021 condemning racism against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. However, Stop AAPI Hate and many Asian Americans believe that this is a good “first step,” but it should not be the only step. Activists from the Asian American community, as well as the Black and Latinx communities, are calling for an anti-racism bullying curriculum in schools and increased public education on racism in order to promote racial empathy and solidarity.
We simply cannot accept this bigotry. We cannot accept the fact that innocent people are being shoved to the ground, shot, robbed and in some cases, killed.
When the pandemic first began, I spent my spring break in Texas with my family who I haven’t seen in over seven years. As violence against Asian Americans was on the rise, my family decided not to hold a family dinner at a restaurant for fear of getting attacked. Every Asian American in the U.S. is manifesting these fears right now. We are no longer in control of our lives when we live in fear.
My name is Leslie Quan and I am a proud Asian American woman. My parents immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam and, like many other Asian Americans, I will not stand for these anti-Asian hate crimes. I will not stand for bigots discrediting the sacrifices and accomplishments of Asian Americans simply because they cannot face the facts.
I am calling on the St. Joe’s community to reflect on these recent crimes against Asian Americans.
Stand in solidarity with every minority and underrepresented group that has ever had to suffer at the hands of racial and social injustice.
