Asian Americans face hate crimes, attacks
DENVER – Helen Oh was walking down the sidewalk of the downtown 16th Street pedestrian mall in April when two young men approached from the other direction.
The coronavirus pandemic had been spreading in the United States for a month, and Asian American community groups were warning of a disconcerting surge of hateful and racist language directed toward them, tied to the virus’ origins in China. Oh, an attorney, was on her guard.
The two men drew closer. “Infected and disgusting,” one called out as they passed, she said. Heart racing, she ducked into astore. “I didn’t think to say anything back when I heard it. It really only sunk in as I was walking away,” she said.
Stepping back onto the street, Oh, 30, walked toward her car as an older couple approached. The woman made a show of detouring around her, she said.
“The woman literally walked off the sidewalk to be as far from me as possible,” Oh said. “There was no one else around and it was so obnoxious.”
One incident, she might have written off as the kind of casual racism she has encountered all her life as the daughter of Korean immigrants. But two, in such a short time? It was clear, she said, that she was being targeted because she is Asian.
“You could feel the sense of hatred and scapegoating that was being built,” Oh said. “I avoided going out by myself for a while.”
Asian Americans across the United States are reporting a significant increase in hate crimes, harassment and discrimination tied to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than a year after these attacks began, the pandemic has galvanized Asian Americans, many of whom have long felt invisible, to speak out about the hatred and racism being directed their way.
Community leaders are calling for greater enforcement of existing hatecrime laws, better connections with local police departments charged with investigating hateful incidents, and for other Americans to consider the impact of their words and actions on the country’s estimated 21 million Asian Americans. Asian American entertainers are using their platforms to highlight the issues, Asian American journalists are sharing their stories of discrimination on social media and a growing chorus of lawmakers are demanding action.
The pandemic has especially “struck a nerve” for the Asian American community, which has forced many to realize that simple discrimination can turn violent, said Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California, who is a member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
“For a large number of Asian Americans, especially the young generation, they’re now seeing for the first time actual violence directed at them or their grandparents,” Lieu said. “It’s highly disturbing.”
In January, President Joe Biden issued an executive order condemning the attacks – and without naming them, criticizing former President Donald Trump and other federal officials who repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” or the “Kung flu.” The order calls for better data collection about hateful incidents, and mandates federal agencies to fight “racism, xenophobia, and intolerance” directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Among recent incidents: In January, an 84-year-old Thai American man was brutally shoved in San Francisco and later died. That same month, police in Oakland, California, said a young man shoved three elderly people to the ground from behind in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood, knocking out one. And last week, a 36-year old Asian man in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood was stabbed. The suspect in that assault faces charges that include attempted murder as a hate crime and assault as a hate crime, among other charges, the New York Police Department said.
The surge in hate incidents against the Asian American community since the start of the pandemic was set aflame last winter when Trump began scapegoating Chinese people for the explosion of coronavirus in the United States.
“It gave a lot of people permission (to act on) their prejudice,” said Mabel Menard, president of OCA Chicago, a chapter of OCA, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for civil rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
The racism and discrimination accompanying the pandemic comes atop the devastation the disease has had on some portions of the Asian and Pacific Islander community, including healthrelated business closures and the deaths of at least 67 Filipino registered nurses – a staggering 31% of all nursing deaths, even though Filipinos make up only 4% of registered nurses in the United States, according to National Nurses United.
More data on Asian hate crimes needed
The San Francisco-based group Stop AAPI Hate, which tracks anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander attacks, and other community groups, such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice based in Washington D.C., have collectively recorded more than 3,000 antiAsian attacks nationwide since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic exploded onto U.S. shores. That’s compared to about 100 such incidents that community trackers have recorded annually in the years prior, said Cynthia Choi, 54, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate.
Because communities of color are often scapegoated during national crises, “we knew it was going to get bad very quickly,” Choi said, “and we wanted to document it in order to understand the severity of it, who was being targeted, where and the magnitude of this problem so we could develop effective responses.”
The group tracks reports from 47 states plus the District of Columbia. California accounts for roughly 40% of all incidents, where nearly a third of all Asian Americans live, Choi said. Among cities with large Asian communities, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York City have the highest numbers of incidents.
While roughly 90% of the incidents don’t rise to the level of prosecutable hate crimes, “they’re dehumanizing,” said Cat Shieh, an anti-hate coordinator with Asian Americans Advancing Justice of Chicago.
“It’s been a cold, sobering reminder that regardless of your immigration status, how many generations you’ve been here, we continue to have conditional status and to be ‘otherized,’ ” she said.