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A brief history of anti-Asian violence and xenophobia in the United States:
1877 - The San Francisco Riot. A white labor strike meeting in San Francisco becomes a two-day pogrom against Chinese immigrants, resulting in four deaths and the destruction of 20 Chinese-owned businesses, a church, and others.
1882 - The Chinese Exclusion Act puts a total ban on Chinese immigration, resulting in the detainment and deportation of thousands. This remains the only law of its kind in U.S. history to prohibit a specific ethnic group or nationality.
1885 - The Rock Springs Massacre. White immigrant miners murder 28 Chinese miners, injure 15 more, and burn 78 Chinese homes to the ground, resulting in over $4.2 million in damages.
1886 - The Seattle Riot. A mob attempts to forcibly expel all Chinese from the city, going so far as to remove 350 Chinese from their homes and force them onto a steamship before being halted. The incident resulted in the removal of over 200 Chinese residents from Seattle.
1887 - The Hell's Canyon Massacre. A gang of horse thieves rob, murder, and mutilate as many as 34 Chinese gold miners in an ambush.
1901 - California governor Henry Gage blames an outbreak of bubonic plague on Chinese immigrants, quarantining Chinatown and its 25,000 residents while allowing whites to move freely in and out. In Honolulu and Santa Ana, Chinatowns are burned down, leaving thousands homeless.
1942 - The U.S. government begins forcibly relocating 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps, requisitioning or forcing them to sell their homes and belongings. Federally confiscated property and reparations are not returned until 1988.
1943 - The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed, and in its place Chinese immigration is restricted to 105 people per year for the entire country until 1965.
1982 - Detroit resident Vincent Chin is murdered by a Chrysler plant supervisor and a laid-off auto worker, who assumed he was Japanese (he wasn't) and blamed him for Japan's auto industry costing them their jobs. Both men were let off with a $3000 fine and no prison time.
1987 - A New Jersey gang beats an Asian man into a coma as a response to the number of Indian-owned businesses in Jersey City.
1999 - Los Angeles resident Joseph Ileto is shot and killed by a white supremacist, who later went on to shoot five more people at a Jewish community center.
2001 - 17-yr-old Kenneth Chiu is stabbed to death in Laguna Hills, after his family's home experienced constant vandalism and xenophobic threats.
2015 - LA Hate Crime Report shows a tripling of reported crimes targeting Asian Americans.
2019 - NYPD data shows Asian Americans as the only racial group to experience increased victimization across all offense types (murder, rape, robbery, assault, etc.) between 2008 and 2019.
March 14, 2020 - Three members of the Bawi family - a father, his 2-yr-old, and his 6-yr-old - are stabbed in a Texas Sam's Club by a man claiming they were spreading coronavirus.
March 17, 2020 - A White House official refers to the coronavirus as the "Kung Flu" in front of an Asian-American reporter.
March 18, 2020 - President Donald Trump defends his habit of calling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus."
March 19 - The Stop AAPI Hate reporting center launches, and soon after escalates to 100 reports per day. Among them is a report of a doctor told to "go back to f****** China," a nurse spit on while delivering medicine, and a 12-yr-old beaten and told to "go back to China."
April 5, 2020 - An Asian-American woman survives an acid attack while taking out the trash in Brooklyn.
June 9, 2020 - An attacker throws a glass bottle at a woman strapping her child into a car seat in San Francisco.
March-June, 2020 - More than 2100 anti-Asian hate incidents are recorded that are related to Covid-19 alone.
June 14, 2020 - Fliers targeting Asian and Asian-American students - including the message "Kill China Virus" - found at off-campus housing at the U of Delaware, Newark.
May 22, 2020 - A San Leandro woman posts handwritten fliers on homes that include the text "In this place, no Asians allowed."
May 5, 2020 - A St. Louis restaurant displayed a pinata in the shape of the coronavirus with a racist depiction of an Asian face on it.
January 31, 2021 - A 91-yr-old Asian American is forcefully pushed onto the sidewalk by a man who went on to shovel a 60-yr-old man and a 55-yr-old woman on the same block down to the ground. All three victims had to be hospitalized.
January 30, 2021 - 84-yr-old Vicha Ratanapakdee dies from injuries sustained after being violently shoved to the ground by a man who ran across the street to shove him, then ran away.
February 3, 2021 - 61-yr-old Noel Quintana is slashed from cheek to cheek with a box cutter while on his morning commute to Harlem.
There are many more that I haven't listed here - please feel free to add in comments - but it's a sampling of the long, long history of violence against AAPI in the U.S.
This is not a new thing. This is not a passing thing. And we cannot afford to remain silent.
This is not a new thing. This is not a passing thing. And we cannot afford to remain silent.
Please look out for one another, especially the elderly and vulnerable. Please encourage one another to learn and grow. Please take action against hatred and violence, in word and action and policy.
And to my AAPI family, stand proud. We are the future they fought for.
And to my AAPI family, stand proud. We are the future they fought for.
