HOST INTRO: The country was shaken on March 16th when news broke of a mass murder that occurred in Atlanta, which targeted Asian women who worked in massage parlors. The assailant was 21-year old Robert Aaron Long, a white man who said his motive was to rid himself of his sexual desire. This horrific attack was only the latest in a series of hate crimes against Asian Americans across the country and sparked a rallying cry/turning point for people to speak up and mobile around anti-Asian racism. Schneider Galeano visited a vigil for the victims in New York City.
AMBI: Natural sound from the vigil.
TRACK: I’m here with Sonam Lama after attending the Union Square vigil held for the Atlanta shooting victims, where hundreds of people have gathered to mourn. Sonam has been deeply affected by the tragedy, being that she herself is an Asian woman, and her parents are immigrants, which the victims were as well.
ACT: It hits home for me because a lot of the people we are seeing be targeted are elder Asian women, and I can’t help but think of my family, my mom, and dad, my aunts, and uncles. Family members who don’t speak English and are immigrants. So for me, that’s why I find it important to talk about anti-Asian sentiment, and I think it’s safe to say that’s how most of the AAPI community feel.
TRACK: She says seeing the community express itself in this way feels groundbreaking or new.
ACT: We are first-generation, second-generation Asian Americans, and we see people who we care about get hurt, and Asians tend to hold it in. Elders think it’s best to save face and never express your hurt, so for us, we’re seeing all of these emotions finally come out with consequences.
TRACK: There were discussions about whether the event was a hate crime and the Atlanta police stopped short of calling it one. Jay Baker, the Atlanta County Sheriff’s spokesperson said the alleged murderer had a “really bad day,” which angered many people who saw it as minimizing the tragedy.
ACT: Part of me knew it had to be a hate crime, but it wasn’t 100% because I didn’t want to believe it was a true thing, you know? So I brushed it to the side but I did hear that 8 people died and after a couple of hours, I discovered that 6 Asian-American women were killed and there was a lot of grief and mourning, but then it quickly evolved to anger and frustration.
TRACK: Although the Atlanta shooting was the biggest act of anti-Asian hate that has occurred in recent times, hate crimes against Asian-Americans have been on a steady increase from last year to now driven at least in part by the scapegoating of the community due to Covid. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University has examined that hate crimes against Asians have occurred in 16 of the nation’s largest cities and that the crimes have increased by 150% since last year.
ACT: Anti-Asian sentiment has always been a thing here, especially with White supremacy, they go hand in hand, but I think with Trump’s rhetoric [of COVID], saying the ‘Chinese Virus,’ ‘Kung-Flu,’ made people feel confident with being publicly anti-Asian. I think when someone in the position as president is encouraging people with the rhetoric that Asian people are the ones who brought the virus to the country, obviously people are gonna be encouraged to put words into action.
TRACK: President Joe Biden condemned anti-Asian sentiment and the shooting in his response to the event in a speech he gave at Emory University in Atlanta and said his administration was working to stop anti-Asian sentiment in the country.
TRACK: JOE BIDEN: ‘In my first week in office, I signed an executive order directing federal agencies to combat this resurgence of xenophobia. The Department of Justice is strengthening its partnership with the AAPI community to prevent these crimes, in addition to its other work to take on violent extremism and domestic terrorism. I’m calling on Congress to pass and get my — to get to my desk the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.
TRACK: The national dialogue has spurred community organizing. Initiatives like Heart of Dinner, which deliver care packages to elderly Asians in the city, and Welcome to Chinatown, which is a grassroots initiative that helps fund Asian-owned businesses to further help the culture thrive in the city.
ACT: I’m very big on community support and starting small, starting local and I think to start off, we need to fund Asian American communities that don’t fit the model minority myth because if we’re being honest, the ones being affected are the poor Asian elders, Asians who are unhoused, who collect bottles and cans for a living making like $2 to $5 a day and then there’s just a whole bunch of immigrant and migrant Asians who don’t have a steady income.
TRACK: Like mentioned before, many talks about how White supremacy plays a big role in anti-Asian sentiment have taken the forefront.
ACT: The first step we have to do is dispelling the model minority myth by funding local communities and providing the right resources. The second would be tackling White supremacy because when someone says ‘stop Asian hate’ it should be ‘end White supremacy’ because White supremacy really is the root of all especially with the anti-Asian hate because we’ve always been used as the right-hand man to White people and that needs to stop.
SIGN OFF: For Baruch College, this is Schneider Galeano in New York City.