Grief, little surprise over Atlanta deaths
Killings a ‘punch in gut’ to Asian Americans
The mass shooting in Georgia Tuesday “felt like a punch in the gut” for an Asian American community reeling from a surge in racism and violent attacks over the past year.
That was how Melissa May Borja, a Filipino American researcher at Stop AAPI Hate, a San Franciscobased reporting center, described hearing the news. But she said she wasn’t surprised.
“There is a deep and long and ugly history of violence against women and racism against Asian Americans,” Borja told The Chronicle.
That sentiment swept across the county
in crushing waves on Wednesday.
Eight people, six of them Asian women, were killed by a gunman at three spas in the Atlanta area Tuesday in the latest outbreak of violence against Asian Americans.
The Bay Area has seen a series of crimes targeting Asian Americans, ranging from deadly attacks to spitting, pushing and verbal assaults. The outbreak of violence coincided with the coronavirus pandemic that former President Donald Trump frequently used racist antiAsian language to describe.
Across the multifaceted Asian American community, people reacted with anger, grief and a sobering lack of surprise at the latest inflection point in what’s often felt like a yearlong surge of hostility.
“We’ve always known about this type of hate,” said San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who called the Georgia attacks “heartbreaking.”
Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting project from Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council and the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University, recorded more than 3,800 reports of coronavirusrelated discrimination in the U.S. from March 2020 through February. Women were twice as likely as men to be victims of racist hostility, according to a report from the project that was released on the same day as the Georgia attack.
The group started tracking incidences of discrimination last March, but to many its findings took on new significance in light of the shootings in the Atlanta area.
“People are targeting who they think are vulnerable,” said Russell Jeung, one of the founders of Stop AAPI Hate and a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State. Jeung said older people, youth and women in particular have been targets of assault.
The group found that Trump contributed to this trend by pointedly referring to the coronavirus as the “China virus” while seeking to avoid blame for his administration’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Jeung said blaming Asian people for the virus created a correlation between hate speech and violence and that it would take more than a change in government rhetoric to stop the attacks.
“Such language provides impetus for those seeking to discriminate against AAPIs and even potentially places Asian Americans in harm’s way,” Stop AAPI Hate said in a December report.
The Pew Research Center found that roughly 3 out of every 10 Asian Americans have reported experiencing racist slurs or jokes since the onset of the pandemic.
Tuesday’s report found that, from March 19, 2020, to Feb. 21, 48 documented cases of hate and discrimination occurred in Georgia, where Tuesday’s shootings took place. Georgia ranked 12th on the report’s list of states with the most known incidents.
California, the nation’s most populous state, had more attacks than any other state with 1,691, the report said.
In San Francisco, a pair of attacks on Asian Americans occurred on Market Street on Tuesday and Wednesday. First, a 59yearold Vallejo man was knocked to the sidewalk near Montgomery Street, possibly causing him to lose his sight. Then on Wednesday morning, according to television station KPIX, an older woman said she was attacked by a man who tried to rob her near McAllister Street, prompting her to beat him with a stick until he stopped. Police did not confirm that incident.
Police announced the arrest of three Antioch men in the beating and robbery of a 67yearold Asian American man in a Chinatown laundromat in February. Police arrested Calvin Berschell, Jason Orozco and Nolowde Beshears, all 19 and from Antioch. The victim, who suffered nonlifethreatening injuries, told police the men threw him to the ground and took his property.
After the Georgia massacre, San Francisco police stepped up patrols in neighborhoods with high numbers of Asian American residents, visitors and businesses.
Mayor London Breed announced the steppedup patrols at a press conference on the anniversary of shelterinplace.
“We have seen a rise of hate crimes against our elderly Asian community, and I want to make it clear that we won’t tolerate it,” she said. “San Francisco will continue to support and uplift our Asian community ... the xenophobia and discrimination against our Asian community has been really horrible.”
Speaking at the mayor’s news conference, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott decried the Atlanta violence and called for public support to stop local attacks against the Asian AmericanPacific Islander community.
“Any type of violent crime is horrific,” Scott said. “But when people appear to be targeted because of their race or ethnicity, that is unacceptable.”
“Everybody is really upset about it,” said Leanna Louie, founder of United Peace Collaborative, a nonprofit group that patrols the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown assisting elder community members and watching over the neighborhood.
Louie said her group launched its patrols last March and has helped deescalate situations, including the attempted robbery of an older resident. Volunteers had responded before the police were
contacted.
Amid reports of increasing acts of violence against Asian Americans, Louie said it’s been easier to recruit these volunteers.
Three thousand miles away, in Acworth, Ga., John Beck recalled the phone call he’d received the night before.
His friend, 33yearold Delaina Ashley Yaun, had died in the shooting at Young’s Asian Massage. Yaun had two young children, Beck said, describing her as a kindhearted, steadfast worker at a Waffle House he had managed.
“Every morning she’d walk in that building playing her Gospel music,” Beck said of the mother of two. “She always wanted to walk in with positivity,” Beck said, remembering how Yaun worked stints as a cook and server, filled extra shifts and fed homeless people.
In Hayward, an Asian American nail salon owner said she was shaken by the news in Atlanta and couldn’t help but peek outside her shop’s windows on Wednesday morning.
“It’s not normal to do this but I’m not going to lie. I’m scared,” said the owner, who’s run her salon for more than 30 years and requested anonymity because she feared being possibly targeted.
“We’re just trying to do our work like everyone else,” she added.
Throughout the day Wednesday, Supervisor Chan said she received several texts and phone calls from friends, family members and community members, asking what they could do to support local Asian American communities. She hoped to channel that energy into a push to fully fund services and programs for the AAPI community.
“We mourned last night, but today we’re going to continue to stand up and continue to advocate and to push for change,” Chan said.
Michael Cabanatuan and Chase DiFeliciantonio are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, Chase.DiFeliciantonio@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan, @ChaseDiFelice