More than 1,000 protest hate crimes against Asian Americans
The 90-minute demonstration decried increasing violence since coronavirus began
More than 1,000 demonstrators carrying placards and shouting chants rallied Sunday at San Jose City Hall to highlight the rise in violent acts against Asian Americans, just days after a shooting spree in Atlanta that left eight people dead.
The latest incident, coming after weeks of increasingly prominent reports of attacks against Asian Americans in the Bay Area and beyond, has resulted in outrage and fear across the United States. The San Jose rally underscored how many in the Asian American community are uniting to draw attention to racism and call for a strong response to the attacks.
Members of the crowd held homemade signs that read “Stop Asian Hate,” “Enough Is Enough” and “Racism Is A Pandemic,” among many other slogans. Some have said that the COVID-19 pandemic and the insistence by some politicians on using racist names to refer to the illness has inflamed anti-Chinese and anti-Asian beliefs.
Eleven people, including former U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, gave brief speeches in a peaceful, 90-minute demonstration that included motorists honking horns in support while passing the City Hall Rotunda.
Amy Nguyen of the Vietnamese American Roundtable told the crowd she felt the pain of deep-rooted racism.
“We don’t have a choice to be silent anymore,” she said. “This is not a pass
ing moment. We are going to be the change.”
Breaking the silence surrounding hate crimes against the Asian American community was a common thread among the speakers, who told the audience to reject the model minority stereotype.
“I’m tired of being frustrated,” said Eric J. Chang, a California deputy attorney general. He said he is ready to challenge racism in all its forms.
Shao Ma of Sunnyvale clutched a sign that said “I have a Dream Too.” Ma said he had originally emigrated from northeast China to attend graduate school at the University of Connecticut. He said racist acts against Asian Americans have been central to conversations in his community.
“People want to see changes,” he said, adding he had not attended any previous anti-racism rallies.
According to the organization Stop AAPI Hate, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have reported almost 3,800 hate incidents nationwide in the last year. The incidents include name-calling, shunning, vandalism and assault.
The concerns increased last week after the fatal shootings of eight people — six of whom were of Korean or Chinese descent — at Atlanta-area spas.
Vicky Chon, a Santa Clara County Board of Education trustee, told the crowd the shootings were a hate crime.
“It’s nothing new,” she said. “This didn’t come from the pandemic. We need to change our history.”
On Saturday, a retired San Jose police veteran started a volunteer effort to patrol the city’s Japantown in response to escalating violence against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adam Juratovac, a Bay Area lawyer who once played for the San Jose SaberCats
of the Arena Football League, said that he had seen the anger around the attacks growing through the response to videos he created on his TikTok page after the Atlanta attack.
Juratovac said his rising anger coalesced last week after he had lunch with his mother, who emigrated from Korea in her mid-20s. He said his mom talked about being afraid to go grocery shopping because of the rise in assaults on elderly Asian Americans.
“I’m done,” said Juratovac, a former Gunn High School football and wrestling star. “We’re finally ready to speak our truths.”
He also recounted his experience of attending college in Moscow, Idaho, where he said people looked at him at Asian American instead of mixed-race.
Honda, who served in Congress from 2001 to 2017, said after the event he had never seen such a large Asian American demonstration.
“Now this is the expectation,” he said.
Honda, 79, called on his community to inundate lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento with emails imploring them to do more than pay lip service to racism against all minority communities.
“We can impact them,” he said. “They can’t stop our narratives.”