Terry Tang
Associated Press
According to a new report released on August 12, despite the fact that political and social activism has lasted for several months, the frequency of anti-Asian incidents reported in the United States so far this year—from mockery to direct attacks—seems expected to exceed last year. .
Stop AAPI Hate is a national coalition that has become the authority to collect data on racially motivated attacks related to the pandemic. It received 9,081 incident reports between March 19, 2020 and June this year. Among them, 4,548 cases occurred last year and 4,533 cases occurred this year. Since the coronavirus was first reported in China, descendants of Asian and Pacific islanders have been regarded as scapegoats based solely on race.
Legislators, activists and community groups have responded to the wave of attacks.There are already countless Social media events, bystander training courses and public gatherings. In May, President Joe Biden signed the cross-party COVID-19 hate crimes bill, which accelerated the Department of Justice’s review of anti-Asian hate crimes and provided federal funding. The leaders of Stop AAPI Hate said that these supporters should not be discouraged because the data has not changed much.
“When you encourage hatred, it’s not like a spirit in a bottle, you can pull it out and push it back at any time,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of AAPI Hate and executive director of Asia Pacific Policy. Planning committee. “There are too many belief systems to make them disappear.”
Kulkarni said that several factors contributed to the data, from the increase in incidents to the greater desire to report. She said that as the economy has become more open in the past few months, this means more opportunities for public interaction and attacks. In addition, the surge in reports usually follows high-profile incidents like the March 16 spa shooting in Atlanta that killed 6 Asian women.
“There, we also saw some events that happened a few weeks or months ago, but they either didn’t know our reporting center or they didn’t take the time to report,” Kulkarni said.
The reports compiled by Stop AAPI Hate come from the victims themselves or those reporting on their behalf, such as adult children. Overall, the report found that verbal harassment and avoidance-interactions that are not legally hate crimes-accounted for the two largest shares of total incidents. Physical attacks constitute a third type of attack. But their percentage of incidents this year has increased compared to last year-16.6%, compared with 10.8% last year.
Over 63% of incidents were submitted by women. Approximately 31% occurred on public streets and 30% occurred in enterprises.
Many Asian Americans and others accuse former President Donald Trump of talking about the virus in a racist way, thereby exacerbating the danger.Although Biden has proven ally, there are concerns about the US investigation into the origin of COVID-19 May lead to more hostility and foreigners who see Asian Americans as enemies.
“We know that other nation-states are competitors of the United States, and some of them do have authoritarian regimes,” Kurkani said. “But the way we talk about the people and the way we blame it seems to be different for the colored communities from the Russian government or the German government.”
Many of the headline attacks in the past year and a half have targeted Asian seniors on both sides of the strait. In most cases, an elderly person was beaten, kicked, pushed, or even suddenly stabbed. Several such incidents were recorded in the video.
A U.S. Census survey released earlier this month found that Asian American families are twice as likely to admit that they will not have enough food throughout the pandemic because they are afraid of going out—not because of affordability. Or traffic problem. In contrast, families from other ethnic groups stated that they are experiencing food insecurity due to the pandemic. The Asian American respondents did not specify whether they were left at home for fear of racial attacks.
Anni Zhong, president and CEO of the San Francisco Elderly Self-Help Agency, said that the elderly they helped were infected with “the second virus, the hate virus.” This non-profit organization provides food and programs to more than 40,000 senior citizens in the Bay Area, most of whom are Asians. The organization shipped 400 meals a day from before the pandemic to more than 5,000 meals a day. Last year, they provided a total of 963,000 meals, compared to the usual 436,000 meals.
“Sometimes when we talk to older people, they say that this kind of hatred keeps them trapped at home, even worse than the pandemic,” Zhong said.
For them, fear is not just a headline, but something in their own backyard.
“One of our customers was on the bus. Just before the man got off the bus, he punched her,” Zhong said. “She said that no one—except for the bus driver and some Chinese people on the bus—to take care of her.”
To succumb to this fear means that older people miss important things, such as seeing a doctor or exercising in the park. Therefore, in June, with some funding from the city government, the elderly self-service expanded the volunteer escort service to accompany the elderly on business trips or outings near Chinatown and other communities. It received more than 200 requests that month.
The impact of verbal and physical attacks aroused some people’s suspicion rather than sympathy. Peter Yu, a Colorado Republican candidate for senator and also of Chinese descent, came under fire last month for describing anti-Asian hate crimes as exaggerations.
Kurkani said: “I welcome him to look at the data and find a significant increase.” “This may be a situation where people refuse to see racism or misogyny. I think they just really refuse to see reality, unfortunately In the United States, we allow these forces to prevent people from living their lives.”
