Asian Americans organize vs hate
Members of the community take matters into their own hands— campaigning online, fundraising—to push back against the “un-American” wave of racist attacks targeting them.
WASHINGTON—As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged America, Esther Lim grew more worried by the day for her parents’ welfare and her own—not just for their health, but their safety in the face of rising attacks against Asian Americans.
When her friend was hurt in a hit-and-run accident—in what she firmly believed was a hate attack—the Korean American decided to take action.
“I wanted to do something more proactive rather than wallow in fear,” Lim, 32, said.
She bought her mother a pepper spray, started learning judo from her father, and wrote “How to Report a Hate Crime”—an information booklet with advice on dealing with the police and phrases written in English to show to bystanders to ask for help.
Lim has begun printing the booklet in six languages—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese—and has more on the way, including Tagalog and Khmer.
‘It’s un-American’
Reports of attacks, primarily against Asian American elders, have spiked in recent months—fueled, activists believe, by talk of the “Chinese virus” by former US President Donald Trump and others.
In an address to the nation on Thursday, US President Joe Biden forcefully condemned what he called “vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated.”
“It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it must stop,” he said.
Documented incidents range from looting Asian-owned businesses, to vandalizing homes and cars, to violent and sometimes fatal attacks in the streets.
People of Filipino, Thai, Japanese, Laotian, Korean and Chinese descent have been targeted.
While racial motivation can be hard to establish, a report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino found that anti-Asian hate crimes nearly tripled from 49 to 122 cases last year, across 16 major US cities including New York and Los Angeles. Yet overall hate crime fell 7 percent.
Using local police data, the report looked at events categorized as criminal in nature and showing evidence of ethnic or racial bias.
‘Protect the community’
Just days into his presidency, Biden signed an executive order condemning racism toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community during the pandemic.
States are following suit, with California and New York allocating more resources to combating anti-Asian racism.
But “I don’t think it’s going to come quickly,” Lim said.
So like her, members of the community are taking matters into their own hands—campaigning online, fundraising for groups like Stop AAPI Hate and raising awareness through hashtags such as #NotYourModelMinority.
Throughout California, groups of volunteers have begun escorting elderly Asian citizens around town.
Jimmy Bounphensy founded one such group called Asians With Attitudes to patrol the Chinatown neighborhood of Oakland, California, after a string of violent attacks and robberies.
At first on his own, he was soon joined by other volunteers.
“If I can save one person, then I’m happy,” he told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) while out on patrol. “My presence and our presence is to let other people know that we really are here trying to protect the community at all costs, make sure everybody goes home safe.”
“I believe we made an impact,” Bounphensy said.
While absolute numbers of hate crimes remain relatively small, Cynthia Choi, coexecutive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, which cofounded the Stop AAPI Hate advocacy group, said it’s likely there are many more lower-level incidents going undetected.
Undetected incidents
Stop AAPI Hate found that more than 2,800 incidents of racism and discrimination— including nonphysical forms— targeting Asian Americans were reported online across the United States between March and December.
“The recent surge has to do with the fact that there’s blame being pointed at China” over COVID-19, Choi said. “And then also couple that with racist rhetoric by the former president ... and other elected officials.”
Beyond rhetoric linked to the pandemic, the crime wave has triggered something of a reckoning about anti-Asian sentiment in the United States—whose roots go back “ever since Asian folks came to the United States,” in the words of Korean American educator and writer Liz Kleinrock.
Examples range from mass lynchings of Chinese laborers in the late 1800s, to the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only US immigration law to exclude an entire ethnic group—to the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Stereotypes relating to the AAPI community include what is known as the model minority myth—which portrays the diverse Asian diaspora as monolithic and “white adjacent.”
Activists argue that this stereotype had the effect of both erasing a varied history and portraying the community as immune from racism— which means Asians are often left out of racial reckoning.
“Whatever type of acceptance [that] Asians have in the United States has always been conditional,” said Kleinrock. This, she pointed out, implies that “Asian people are only respected and valued when we keep our heads down ... and fall in line.”
“Well, those days are over,” she said.
Esther Lim has begun printing an advice booklet in six languages—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese—and has more on the way, including Tagalog and Khmer