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.

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:

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.


TJ Acena1 Comment