A Week That Feels Like the Past Century
Atlanta, March 2021. Photo credit: Megan Varner/Getty Images
It was another troubling week for Asian Americans.
Monday: Danny Yu Chang was struck in the head and knocked unconscious during his lunch break in downtown San Francisco.
Tuesday: Six Asian American women were among eight people shot and killed in Atlanta.
Wednesday: 83-year-old Ngoc Pham was attacked walking home with a bag of groceries in the Tenderloin.
The same morning, 75-year-old grandmother Xiao Zhen Xie was punched in the face waiting to cross Market Street.
That afternoon, police arrested three men who beat and robbed an Asian senior in a Chinatown laundromat. Surveillance video of the brutal assault went viral.
Thursday: Residents living in the area of San Francisco Police Department’s Park station received an email newsletter with helpful tips to “survive an active attacker.” The captain’s message included links to instructional videos on how to “Stop The Bleed.”
Friday: A school board member’s racist tweets aimed at Asian Americans were revealed from 2016, adding to the pain and outrage that the Asian community has felt for a long time.
Connecting the Dots
The Atlanta shootings of 2021 put a spotlight on the disturbing number of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationwide. The group Stop AAPI Hate documented nearly 3,800 incidents the past year.
Yet Atlanta 2021 connects to Detroit 1982 when Vincent Chin was murdered with a baseball bat. The industrial rust belt was reeling from recession and two unemployed auto workers blamed Japanese car makers. They targeted a Chinese-American man who was in a bar celebrating his bachelor party.
Modern San Francisco
Atlanta 2021 and Detroit 1982 connect to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the detention of Chinese immigrants on Angel Island, not allowing Asian residents to buy homes on San Francisco’s westside, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The discrimination of the past century is a direct line to modern San Francisco, where violence against Asian residents was a problem long before the politics of a pandemic scapegoated Asian Americans.
It was difficult for Stop Crime SF to keep up with all the cases — like 89-year-old Yik Oi Huang, a grandmother who was robbed and beaten into a coma while walking in a Visitacion Valley park in 2019. She eventually died from her injuries.
Stop Crime SF asked Marlene Tran to join our board of directors. Marlene is a community advocate who has been trying for 30 years to get police, prosecutors, and elected officials to pay attention to crimes against Chinese immigrants in long ignored neighborhoods like Visitacion Valley.
Processing the Stress
The Atlanta murders, multiple assaults on Asian seniors in San Francisco, and learning about the school board vice president’s racist anti-Asian views was a lot of trauma to process in a single week. Especially when the school board president chose to defend her vice president, over the calls from the community for Alison Collins to resign.
A father on the westside recently told Stop Crime SF about his garage being broken into while his family slept above it. Now his kids are terrified the bad guys are going to come and get them, too. The kids were already frayed from being isolated in Zoom school for a year. But that didn’t shield them from seeing all the hate crimes against Asian residents in San Francisco and across the country. This Asian American family is stressed.
When it comes to public safety, there is a lot we need to hold our elected officials accountable for. Crimes must be prosecuted. Victims must be supported.
ACTION ITEMS
Join Stop Crime SF, focused on creating a safe and sound city for all.
Join the United Peace Collaborative, focused on keeping Chinatown safe and beautiful.
