THE ASIAN COMMUNITY NEEDS ALLIES. HERE’S HOW TO HELP.
The killing of eight people — six of them Asian women — on March 16 in the Atlanta area sickened me. I felt like people from my own community were attacked and brutally slaughtered, taken from this physical world for no reason. This reaction brought a few questions to my mind:
1) After all that has happened in the past year, why doesn’t outrageous, inexcusable loss anger more people?
2) I’m not even Asian. Why does this hurt so much?
My story is a little different than most. I’m a Caucasian woman born and raised in the U.S., but I had the good fortune to live in Asia with my family for seven years, first in Indonesia and then in China. When I returned from Asia, I enrolled my three kids in a Mandarin immersion school, where they studied the language and culture of China and other Asian countries and made friends with people from all over the world.
During my time in Asia and for years after, we studied next to and celebrated with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
We did Girl Scouts together, went camping, rode bikes, ate meals, played sports — you know, the stuff people do — and through this, I developed a deep admiration and respect for Asian cultures. My Asian friends are honest — they tell it like it is. They’re funny — the laughs we share are countless. They’re resourceful — I love working through problems with them, because we find solutions! But I shouldn’t have to tell anyone why they deserve respect. These traits are wonderful.
Yet their population has been targeted in thousands of senseless attacks since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and in this we see the harm that hateful language perpetuates. We must not forget the power that words hold. Words create thoughts and thoughts create actions. None of this is happening in a vacuum.
Furthermore, I may not be Asian, but I am human, and this is why the killing of innocent people isn’t becoming less outrageous. If we stop feeling we stop caring, and if we stop caring, we won’t gather together to mourn our losses and then create change so this disgusting carnage stops once and for all. I may be Caucasian, but that doesn’t preclude me from eventually being targeted by some madman for something I’ve said, done or represented, or simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like a grocery store in Boulder. If we don’t come together and stop these attacks now, I might be next. Or, even worse, my children, my husband or someone in my family. Or, it could be you.
One of the victims of the Atlanta area shooter, Xiaojie Tan, was killed the day before her 50th birthday. Tan was best friends with her daughter and only child. Her sister, who has heart problems, needed to be put on oxygen when she found out about her sister’s killing. The next day, the family couldn’t bear to tell Tan’s mom that her daughter had perished. When her mother called to wish her daughter a happy birthday, they said she had lost her phone and couldn’t answer. That’s devastating. We shouldn’t have to tell stories like this to humanize our fellow citizens, but this example, along with the other stories from the Atlanta area, help us see how much, in the words of Maya Angelou, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
We need to stop thinking about these killings and any action leveled against someone for their ethnicity as an attack on “them.” This was an attack against people just like us — parents, workers, caretakers, families, children. And it won’t stop until we stop it. Here are a few ways to make a difference in ending Anti-Asian harassment and violence:
Tell your lawmakers to support House Resolution 151, introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, D-New York, condemning “all forms of anti-Asian sentiment as related to COVID-19.”
Go to sdapicoalition.org to learn about the San Diego API coalition and how you can help.
Go to pacarts.org/stopapihate to sign a support letter as an individual or business.
Go to stopaapihate.org to report any incidence of AAPI hate crimes.