Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday gathered in New York’s Queens borough to demand an end to anti-Asian violence, part of a national day of action following deadly mass shootings at Asian-owned spas in Atlanta, Georgia.
Organizers held rallies in about 60 US cities, including Atlanta, along with San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Portland.
“We’re one year into this pandemic and anti-Asian violence has only intensified,” said Judi Chang, a representative of the anti-war, anti-racism ANSWER coalition behind the demonstrations.
Photo: AFP
Like many organizers, Chang attributed the spike in anti-Asian sentiment to political rhetoric that casts China as a threat.
“Everyone I know who is Asian has been a victim of violence or harassment, assault,” she told reporters in New York. “We get spat at, we get yelled at. We get stared at, people move away when we come.”
The March 16 gun rampage left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent, triggering alarm and grief nationwide along with fear over a rise in COVID-19 pandemic-era hate crimes.
“Stop demonizing China and Chinese people!” read some signs wielded by demonstrators in Atlanta, as others were emblazoned with messages like “Say no to anti-Asian racist terror!”
“I’m not a virus, I’m not the enemy, I’m Chinese-American and I love who I am,” read the placard of another demonstrator marching with about 100 others in Washington’s Chinatown district.
Irving Lee, a demonstrator in Queens, called “the anti-Asian violence that’s been created in his country” a “byproduct of US foreign policy.”
When the spread of COVID-19 began gripping the US in early last year a number of politicians, including then-US president Donald Trump, dubbed it the “Wuhan” or “Chinese” virus, which Lee said has had devastating effects on Asian communities.
“I’ve seen a lot of people that have been affected,” he told reporters. “They’re scared to go out as a consequence of the violence that’s been going on.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Seattle and San Francisco have charged men with hate crimes in separate incidents that authorities have said targeted people of Asian descent.
On Friday, prosecutors in King County, Washington, charged Christopher Hamner, 51, with three counts of malicious harassment after police said he screamed profanities and threw things at vehicles in two incidents last week targeting women and children of Asian heritage, the Seattle Times reported on Saturday.
In San Francisco, Victor Humberto Brown, 53, made a first court appearance after authorities said he repeatedly punched an Asian American man at a bus stop while shouting an anti-Asian slur.
Brown was initially booked on misdemeanor counts, but prosecutors have elevated the case to a felony, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
He said in court that he has a post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Seattle, Hamner yelled profanities and threw things at a woman stopped at a red light with her two children, ages five and 10, on March 16, court documents showed.
Three days later, Hamner cut off another vehicle driven by an Asian woman, yelled a profanity and the word “Asian” at her and then threw a water bottle at her car after charging at her when she pulled into a parking spot, authorities said.
Hamner was being held on US$75,000 bail on Saturday. It was not immediately clear if Hamner, who has not yet made a court appearance, had retained an attorney or would be assigned a public defender.
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