Violence Against Asian Americans Is Not New
--guest post by TJ Acena, AFSCME Local 328 diversity/equity/inclusion chair—
There’s been a lot going at OHSU recently. But all I’ve been thinking about since Wednesday morning is the series of mass shootings in Atlanta that killed eight people. The shooter targeted an Asian spa in a suburb of Atlanta shortly before driving into the city to target two Asian spas across the street from each other. Six of the people killed were Asian women:
Park Soon Chung, age 74
Hyun Jung Grant, age 51
Kim Sun Cha, age 69
Yue Yong Ae, age 63
Delaina Ashley Yaun, age 33
Paul Andre Michels, age 54
Xiaojie Tan, age 49
Daoyou Feng, age 44
A ninth victim, Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, age 30, who was walking outside the first location, is currently hospitalized in critical condition.
My life and the lives of those women killed are very different. The women who were murdered were Korean; my father’s family came to America from the Philippines. But when I read about violence against Asian American people, those distinctions disappear. Because so often, they haven’t mattered to attackers — that the targets are Asian or “look Asian” has been enough reason for them to be attacked.
In December, an Asian American man was asked, “Are you Chinese?” before he was assaulted at a MAX stop in Portland — his attacker did not wait for an answer. In the beginning of 2021, more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses were vandalized in Portland’s Jade District. This is a time when Asian American people are feeling vulnerable — in public spaces, online and in our workplaces.
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism reported that anti-Asian hate crimes were up 149% in America’s largest cities in 2020.
In April 2020, the Oregon Department of Justice reported that nearly 20% of reported hate crimes and bias incidents came from the state’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
And the above are just reported incidents, those where people found a way to report and felt safe doing so.
There’s a lot to unpack here — these shootings and other hate incidents didn’t happen in a vacuum:
I could talk about how the shooter said he targeted these women because they were “a temptation that he wanted to eliminate” and about how Asian women are hypersexualized in American society and how similar businesses are assumed to be places where sex work happens.
I could talk about how men being socialized to see women only as objects of desire makes them feel entitled to women’s bodies — to do whatever they want, even destroy them.
I could talk about how white men who commit violence, especially against people of color, are usually brought in by police without being killed, something not afforded to Black people simply suspected of crimes.
I could talk about how people of color are constantly told that the hate we experience is not real, that our lives aren’t valued. The authorities said that the shooter “had a bad day” and that they didn’t believe the shooting was racially motivated because the shooter said it wasn’t. As if the shooter is a credible source to make that statement.
I could talk about the "model minority" myth, where Asian Americans are held up as “good” people of color who “work harder.” This myth erases the racism we experience and ignores the lived experiences of “Asian” people (a group so diverse as to make the term meaningless), while at the same time upholding a racial hierarchy that drives a wedge between Asian Americans and other racial groups, hurting racial solidarity.
It’s easy to point to recent racist rhetoric, like the term “China virus” (which led to a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and hate speech) but this country has long history of violence against Asian people:
I could talk about Balbir Singh Sodhi, an Indian man who was shot in 2001 outside the gas station he owned because a white man wanted revenge for 9/11.
I could talk about the Cleveland Elementary shooting in 1989, when a white man killed five children, all Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants.
I could talk about the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 by two white men who were fined $3,000 and served three years of probation for the crime.
I could talk about how U.S. wars in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s drove refugees from those countries here, and I could talk about the 33 Vietnamese refugees deported just days ago, despite an agreement between our countries that should have protected them.
I could talk about the Japanese internment camps in America during World War II, where entire families imprisoned and had nothing to return to afterwards.
I could talk about the Watsonville Riots of 1930, where gangs of white men roamed the California city for days assaulting Filipino farm workers.
I could talk about the U.S. occupation of the Philippines.
I could talk about the Chinese massacre at Deep Creek in 1887, where as many as 34 Chinese miners were murdered by white men and boys in in Wallowa County.
I could talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The term "yellow peril" refers to the demonization of Asians, particularly Chinese people, by Westerners. Another word for this is white supremacy.
This is why I am angry. This is why I am scared.
Resources to Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate: