Groups condemn bigotry against Asian Americans
Anti-asian bigotry isn’t new in San Antonio, but the coronavirus pandemic has amplified and expanded it, members of the Asian American Society of San Antonio and other groups said Thursday at a gathering where local officials denounced recent examples of it. It shouldn’t happen here, they said.
San Antonio is a place where neighbors help each other, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said, adding, “The only way to drive out hate is through love and compassion, which San Antonio demonstrates every day.”
The news conference on the steps of the Bexar County Courthouse followed escalating reports nationwide of harassment and violence against people of Asian descent, including the deaths of six women in the Atlanta area this week and recent vandalism at a
restaurant on the Northwest Side.
The restaurant, Noodle Tree, was spray-painted with graffiti last weekend after its Vietnamese American owner spoke out against Gov. Greg Abbott’s rollback of the state’s mask mandate during an interview on CNN.
Police Chief William Mcmanus said graffiti is bad enough, but it’s much worse when it’s the vehicle of a racial or ethnic attack.
“There’s nothing worse than a bigoted coward who writes their bigoted feelings on a structure,” he said.
But Mcmanus could offer no new information on the investigation. Police have made no arrests and have declined to say if they had witnesses, video footage or suspects.
District Attorney Joe Gonzales also declined to comment on the investigation but vowed to use every charging instrument possible to enhance a sentence if a hate crime can be proved.
Racially motivated bigotry and violence “cannot be tolerated in Bexar County,” said Gonzales, flanked by at least 30 people representing a half-dozen organizations.
“It is important that we speak out, and it’s important that we denounce this sort of hatred that is happening across this nation. It is important that San Antonio knows that this is not who we are,” he said.
Mike Nguyen has received an outpouring of public support since the graffiti was discovered Sunday. He said he had been prepared for the hateful blowback he received on social media in response to his comments about Abbott, but not the ethnic and other slurs painted on the windows of the noodle shop and on a bench outside.
They included the phrases, “Go back 2 China,” “hope u die,” “commie” and “NO MASK.”
Christina Lew, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance San Antonio Lodge, said the organization is working with civic leaders to create an advocacy group to support victims of hate crimes. She agreed with other speakers who said the recent trend had shocked generally tolerant San Antonians.
“Growing up, I would get the snarky ‘ching chong’ racial slurs, but never something so blatantly just out there as we saw at Noodle Tree,” she said. “I’m really hoping that everyone can see how great San Antonio is.”
Last year, a 70-year-old Chinese American restaurant owner was assaulted after being called inappropriate names related to the coronavirus,
some recalled before Thursday’s event. He has declined to be identified, they said, but the attack put him in a hospital for a week.
“Asians keep to themselves,” Lew said. “He didn’t want to make a big wave about it. He didn’t want people to know he was afraid that he would get retaliation or that his business could get hurt because of it.”
She also recalled Chester’s Hamburgers advising patrons to “Don’t buy Chinese … Buy American” on a marquee last April. The chain’s owner said it referred to communist China, not an ethnic group, but took it down when he heard complaints.
“If he had just put ‘Buy American,’ that’s great,” Lew said. “But you don’t need to single out our culture and bring more hate to it.”
Several other anti-asian incidents have made local headlines since the pandemic began. Days after the City Council passed a resolution denouncing hate speech directed at Asian Americans, a small airplane flew over parts of the city with a banner directing people to use a racist name for the virus.
On Thursday, Nguyen said the death threats against him and his family made him cancel plans to reopen the dine-in portion of his restaurant to customers.
“Especially with the events that happened in Georgia, I can’t take that risk,” he said in an interview before the news conference, which he did not attend.
A white man, 21, was arrested after eight people were killed Tuesday at three spas in the Atlanta area. Six were Asian women.
In the U.S. over the past year, anti-asian hate crime has increased. A preliminary analysis of police data in 16 of the largest U.S. cities showed such incidents rose 149 percent last year, according to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
That occurred even as hate crime in these cities dropped 7 percent overall, the center found. The report said anti-asian incidents first spiked in March and April last year amid “a rise in COVID cases and negative stereotyping of Asians relating to the pandemic.”
San Antonio wasn’t included in that analysis, and the Police Department was unable to immediately provide statistics on local reports and charges.
Councilman Manny Peláez said his District 8 has the highest concentration of Asian families in the city.
“These are the most American people I’ve ever come across because they stand for all the values we hold dear,” Peláez said. “Love, hard work, worship ... and standing next to each other when moments are hard.”
“This isn’t about one restaurant and one restaurant owner being scared, it’s about all these people being scared,” he said. “But the beautiful thing about San Antonio is, you know we’ve got your backs.”