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Attacks against Asian Americans is as old as America itself but the sheer volume and number have gone up astronomically since the COVID panic. Here's a few examples: 1) 84 Thai grandfather shoved and killed last week in SF https://www.ktvu.com/news/family-of-84-year-old-killed-in-sf-believe-attack-was-racially-motivated 1)
2) 91 year old Chinese man attacked in Oakland last week. Same suspect believed to have attacked a 55 yr old Chinese man and 60 yr old woman on the same day. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/02/05/asian-celebrities-offer-25000-reward-for-info-in-oakland-chinatown-attacks/
3) Vietnamese American community center burned down in Oakland https://abc7news.com/oakland-community-center-fire-vietnamese-american-of-the-east-bay-firefighters/10319017/
4) Chinese man's van carjacked last night in San Francisco WITH HIS CHILDREN INSIDE while he was making a Door Dash delivery! Thank goodness the children were later found unharmed in the abandoned van. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/kids-found-delivery-van-san-francisco/2461349/
5) At least 20 robberies and attacks on Chinese-owned businesses in Oakland the past two weeks: https://abc7news.com/oakland-chinatown-chamber-of-commerce-robbery-attack/10202793/
6) a 61 yr old Filipino man suffered having his face slashed with a box cutter on the subway in NYC on his way to work last week https://news.yahoo.com/mans-face-slashed-nyc-subway-203314003.html
7) Here's a case from April: an Asian woman suffered acid burns after being attacked while she put out her trash in Brooklyn: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/asian-woman-chemical-burns-brooklyn-new-york-attack
8) And three members of a Burmese American family were stabbed in a Sam's Club in Texas in April because the assailant though they were carrying "the China virus." Two of the victims were kids, aged 6 and 2! https://www.kxan.com/news/crime/report-sams-club-stabbing-suspect-thought-family-was-chinese-infecting-people-with-coronavirus/
9) All across the US, Asian Americans have been spit on, verbally assaulted, and attacked during the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-coronavirus-racist-attacks.html
10) STOP AAPI HATE, a website founded in part by SFSU Asian American Studies Prof. Russell Jeung, has collected reports of 1000s of hate crimes directed at Asian Americans since March 2020: https://stopaapihate.org/reportsreleases/
11) TBH, violence against Asians in the U.S. is nothing new. Americans have often taken out xenophobic fears of Asian-appearing people, whether for fear of competition of jobs, fear of disease, fear of terrorism, etc. If the US has a dispute overseas, Asian Americans are blamed:
12) here are some examples of the Yellow Peril phenomenon in US history. Remember when 27 yr old Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two autoworkers in Detroit in 1982? ( BTW the murderers served no time in prison): https://www.history.com/news/vincent-chin-murder-asian-american-rights
13) Remember in 1989 when a white supremacist shot Cambodian and Vietnamese children at an elementary school in Stockton? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(Stockton)
14) What about the rape and/or murder of Asian American women who have been fetishized, objectified, and then are murdered by their male attackers? So many victims! Such as University of Illinois scholar Yingying Zhang who was killed in 2017: https://news.wttw.com/2020/10/20/new-documentary-finding-yingying-shares-intimate-details-about-murdered-scholar
15) And Vietnamese American Annie Le was murdered by a male lab tech at Yale in 2009 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18yale.html
16) How about farther back in history? for example, the Rock Springs Massacre of Chinese workers in Wyoming in 1882: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
17) Or the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
18) Ever hear of "The Truckee Method" or "The Tacoma Method"? These euphemisms refer to the lynchings of Chinese by whites in Nevada and Washington state to get rid of Chinese people from their communities: https://chineseamericanhistorian.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-to-rid-your-town-of-chinamen-tacoma.html
19) The Placerville, CA city logo even has a hang's man noose on it, a jokey commemoration of the lynchings of the Chinese (and Indigneous and Mexicans) in the town's history. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-03/noose-placerville-logo-hangtown-gold-rush-california-black-lives-matter
20) Anti-Asian violence is nothing new in America. And resistance to this violence is not new either. Why are their Chinatowns in the US? Because that used to be the only safe place for Chinese to live. Many historians have written abt this, for example: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/69xsb9wf9780252073892.html
21) Every time there's tensions (or war) betwn the US and an Asian country, Asian Americans are attacked on US soil. Right now there's tension w/ China. Back when it was Japan, the U.S. deprived Japanese Americans of their rights and locked them in camps: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/injustice-japanese-americans-internment-camps-resonates-strongly-180961422/
22)Throughout US history Asian Americans have resisted the violence and attacks against us and our communities. Many, many books on this. Our demand for equity helps all. For example, when Wong Kim Ark sued for his birthright citizenship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark
23) Another example: when Chinese American Mary Tape sued to desegregate public schools on behalf of her 8 year old daughter: https://www.history.com/news/chinese-american-segregation-san-francisco-mamie-tape-case
24) The examples of violence and attacks against Asians in the US are endless as are examples of our resistance. Asian Americans are facing another wave of violence right now in 2021. DOES THIS HAVE TO GO ON AND ON FOREVER? WE NEED HELP! Speak up against the stereotypes...
25) The "model minority" myth says Asians don't face racism in the US and can get ahead by shutting up and following some always unstated rules of assimilation. All this myth does is silence us, hides the violence, and prevents us from having allies.
26) I could go on and on (sadly enough), but I'm going to end now. The attacks on Asian Americans are on an upward swing, fed by four years of 45's media-enabled bigotry and xenophobia and hate speech. These attacks are unjust. They must stop. Please speak up.
