12 minute read
RISING TOGETHER, STRONGER THAN EVER
Spurred on by the anti-Asian hate that dominated the 1980s, characterized by intense targeting and blaming of Japan for America’s ills, Asian Americans came together in a new civil rights movement, joining Black people, Jews, Arab Americans, Latinx groups, and people of diverse faiths, genders, and backgrounds. Our efforts inspired the creation of many new Asian American Pacific Islander advocacy groups and contributed to the movement for hate crimes protections, as well as the right of victims to speak at the sentencing of their assailants. These and other changes represented real progress, even if they did not put an end to violent incidents against Asians in the US. But over the past two years, the escalation of xenophobic hate triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a potent reminder of how far we still have to go. The StopAAPIHate.org website documented more than 11,000 hate incidents from March 2020 through March 2022, including mass killings of Asian women in Atlanta and Sikh Americans in Indianapolis. Of those 11,000 reports, more than two-thirds of the victims were women, girls and elderly Asian Americans. It is worth noting that Vincent Chin was killed in the third year of his era’s economic crisis; today, more than two years after the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed, the current attacks on Asian Americans persist with no end in sight. Twenty-four million people now identify as Asian American, comprising 7% of the US population—and our numbers continue to rise. By comparison, in the 1980s the Asian American population had surpassed 1% of the US for the first time, according to the census. Yet even with this striking increase
of Americans of Asian descent, the general invisibility of Asian American communities, narratives, history, voices, concerns, and existence remains the norm in the dominant American culture. When American respondents are asked to name a prominent Asian American of any background, the most common answer is “Don’t Know.” After this writer's 2020 Washington Post op-ed, many people asked if it was true that Asian Americans really experienced prejudice and racial violence. Even when presidential candidate Joe Biden was pointedly asked about anti-Asian hate in America during a TV interview, his response focused entirely on Xi Jinping and the People’s Republic of China. This widespread ignorance creates barriers for Asian Americans who experience and call out discrimination. For example, back in 1982 a witness heard Vincent’s killers say, “It’s because of you motherf---ers that we’re out of work.” Yet to many observers at the time, such statements showed no racial motivation because no race-specific slurs were used. In fact, as vulnerable people know too well, discrimination can occur without the articulation of identifiable slurs—or any vocalization at all. Similarly, after the March 2021 mass shooting in Atlanta, local police initially asserted that no racism was involved because the killer told them that he was just having a “bad day”—as though his hunt to find Asian-run spas had no relevance. The white police officials seemed to accept without question the shooter’s explanation that he was trying to cure his “sex addiction”—a justification rooted in racist and sexist stereotypes of Asian women. Just as anti-Japan fervor contributed to Vincent Chin’s murder, today’s hostility toward Asian Americans has been stoked by years of China-bashing. As the Japan-bashing of the 1980s waned, the 1990s fear-mongers shifted to the “China threat.” Asian Americans who simply made a donation to President Bill Clinton’s campaign were investigated by the FBI and publicly touted as likely dangerous conduits to China—even Asian Americans of Filipino, Korean, Thai or other non-Chinese ancestry. Today’s aggressive dragnet in search of Chinese spies has led to false criminal charges against numerous innocent Chinese Americans. The Trump administration’s “China Initiative” touted by FBI director Christopher Wray has only accelerated the pace of unsubstantiated investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of Chinese Americans. Nor is the anti-Asian hate limited to East Asian Americans. In the wake of September 11, 2001, there were numerous attacks and killings of people who “look Muslim,” motivated by Islamophobia toward Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Americans. On August 5, 2012, a heavily armed white gunman with ties to neo-Nazis entered a busy Sikh gurdwara and began shooting, killing seven temple-goers. Muslim-bashing policies, such as the 2017 federal “Muslim Ban” order that barred people from majority Muslim countries from entering the US, continue to equate Muslims with terrorists and perpetuate Islamophobic attacks. In April 2021, just a month after the mass shootings of East Asian women in Atlanta, another mass shooter went to a Fedex facility in Indianapolis, where a majority of employees are South Asian, killing eight people, including four Sikh Americans.
Unfortunately, tensions between the US and China, as well as with the Middle East and Western Asia, show no signs of abating in the foreseeable future. Until education, public culture, and stronger policies in America can promote understanding and awareness about Asian Americans and other marginalized peoples, the harm of prejudice and hate is likely to continue its impact on yellow and brown Asian Americans of every ethnicity.
Dynamic Forward Motion
In spite of these challenges, Asian American communities are both resisting and evolving in dynamic, forward motion. The AAPI population has increased considerably in recent decades—and AAPI voices are strengthened by a growing infrastructure of activists, leadership, and organizations more empowered to speak up to counter the invisibility and take on thorny issues. A growing confidence in the role that AAPIs play in American society can be seen in the very words used to describe today’s challenges: in the 1980s, Asian Americans decried anti-Asian “sentiment”—a euphemistic reference to a “feeling” or
“attitude.” With today’s violence, more unflinching, pointed language calls out anti-Asian “prejudice,” “bias,” “intolerance,” “hate,” “racism,” and any number of words that more precisely and unapologetically capture the societal nature of what Asians in America are facing.
Asian Americans have stories to tell about diverse communities refusing to be blamed and ignored, and standing together for human dignity.
Technological change has also shaped new generations of activists. In the 1980s, there were no mobile phones or internet to inform and connect our diverse and separate communities. Today, AAPIs armed with smartphone cameras and social media are building solidarity to resist anti-COVID hate. AAPI community activists made StopAAPIHate.org accessible in several Asian languages, capturing data from thousands of incident reports in order to document and validate the existence of anti-Asian hate in the early months of the pandemic, when restrictions on gatherings made communication a challenge. Social media and the internet have also highlighted how AAPIs are standing with Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities to fight systemic racism, especially in the face of police killings of Black Americans and other people of color, including Asian Americans. AAPI activists are debating the role of the police in society and are questioning racism that is imbedded in the prison industrial system. Some activists question the need for hate crime protection laws that increase jail time, even those laws fought for by communities of color, such as in Vincent Chin’s case. Other Asian American communities, especially Chinatowns and other Asian hubs, seek more government protections against anti-Asian violence. But social media has also been used to perpetuate divisions when videos of Black assailants assaulting Asian American go viral and are amplified by media, creating a false narrative even when two separate studies have shown that the majority of anti-Asian hate assaults are committed by white males, not by Black people. Divisiveness keeps communities apart, preventing them from coming together to fight for their common needs, such as safe and livable communities. The Vincent Chin story offers a counter example of solidarity between many different peoples who came together in a movement led by Asian Americans to fight for civil rights and justice for all. Back in March 2020, this writer warned that anti-Asian hate was not going away. More than two years later, I believe it has the potential to get worse, depending on what happens with the virus, the global economy, upheaval in the midst of the war in Ukraine, and the status of US-China relations. Building a society in which violence and hate do not exist remains an elusive dream. But a crucial difference between then and now is clear: Asian Americans are rising up, insisting on an end to invisibility, hate violence and injustice. When history is finally written about the American experience during these difficult COVID years, Asian Americans have have important stories about the struggle of diverse communities refusing to be blamed and ignored, and standing together for human dignity.
—Helen Zia
Conversation Questions
» What does it mean to have allies and be an ally for other groups? What does meaningful allyship look like to you? » The process of learning new information and unlearning biases can be a difficult and surprising journey. After reading the articles in this guide, take a moment to reflect on what you learned, and what you will choose to actively unlearn. As you continue to learn and unlearn, what are some tangible ways in which you can support yourself in your journey? Perhaps it is through reading, talking with someone in a different community, or having difficult conversations with family or friends. Everything you do, and try, will be important work. » Why do we need to talk about Vincent
Chin, and Asian Americans who came before him, and after him?
Chief Editor and Writer Helen Zia Editor and Design Sara Ying Rounsaville Contributors Eveline Chao (The Guardian); Roland Hwang
(Michigan Bar Journal); Min Jin Lee (The New York Times)
Copy Editing Christine Sarkis, Lia Shigemura Editorial Assistant Olivia Ying Rounsaville Design and Production Polytechnic Berkeley Conversation Questions Asian Pacific American Center,
Smithsonian Institution
Research for Know Them, Know Their Names Daniella
Castillo, Dianne A.Barba, Eric Chan, with Dr. Mary Kunmi Yu Danico, CalPoly-Pomona—Asian American Transnational Research Initiative
Translations (Digital Version) Asian Pacific American
Center, Smithsonian Institution
Editorial Support Asian Health Services, One Nation Commission All articles and written content are authored by Helen Zia, except where otherwise noted. Any errors are hers alone.
PHOTOS
Cover (lower photo): Getty Images/Timothy A. Clary Page 34: AP photo Page 36: AP photo/Bill Hudson Page 39: courtesy National Archives Photo/Spider Martin Page 40: AP photo/Ernest Bennett Page 41: Unsplash/Colin Lloyd Page 42: courtesy One Nation Commission Page 48, 53: courtesy Jean Wu Page 60: Unsplash/Korantin Grall Page 61: Unsplash/Viviana Rishe Page 63: courtesy Flickr Below and Page 1: Leah Kerr
All other photos courtesy of the collections of Helen Zia and the Vincent And Lily Chin Estate, with special thanks to the late Corky Lee and Victor Yang Page 1 photo (bottom): L-R: Don Young, Center for Asian American Media; Michigan State Senator Stephanie Chang; Rochelle Riley, Detroit Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship; Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan; Rebeka Islam, APIAVote Michigan; James Shimoura, Vincent Chin 40th Committee; Zosette Guir, Detroit Public Television; Helen Zia, Vincent and Lily Chin Estate; Roland Hwang, American Citizens for Justice; Wendy Jackson, The Kresge Foundation Photo above: L-R: Helen Zia and Lily Chin Photo below: L-R: Don Young, Debra Nakatomi, Amy Watanabe, Zosette Guir, Roland Hwang, Rebeka Islam, James Shiimoura, Rochelle Riley, Helen Zia
Asian Americans Building the Movement
THIS LEGACY GUIDE IS PRODUCED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE VINCENT CHIN 40TH REMEMBRANCE AND REDEDICATION, JUNE 16-19, 2022 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE .
The Late US Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta The Honorable Judy Chu, US House of Representatives Reverend Jesse Jackson, Founder and President of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Irene Natividad, President, Global Summit of Women George Takei, Actor, Author, Activist
Zosette Guir, Manager, Content Operations, Detroit Public Television Roland Hwang, President, American Citizens for Justice Rebeka Islam, Executive Director, APIAVote-MI Debra Nakatomi, President, Nakatomi & Associates Rochelle Riley, Director, City of Detroit, Department of Arts, Cultures, and Entrepreneurship James Shimoura, Chairperson, Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance and Rededication Amy Watanabe, Managing Director, Client Services, Nakatomi & Associates Don Young, Director of Programs, Center for Asian American Media Helen Zia, Executor, Vincent and Lily Chin Estate and Vida Benavides, Gloria Caoile, Christine Reglos, Sapana Sakya, Christian Yau-Weeks
WITH GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM:
The Kresge Foundation—Presenting Sponsor Surdna Foundation Ford Foundation The Henry Luce Foundation The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) AARP Tamlyn Tomita & Daniel Blinkoff Participant Media Mastercard AARP Michigan Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission
EXTRAORDINARY IN-KIND ASSISTANCE FROM:
Asian Health Services CalPoly-Pomona—Asian American Transnational Research Institute Comcast FREEP Film Festival One Nation Commission Asian Pacific American Center, Smithsonian Institution
SPECIAL THANKS to the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum/Detroit Film Theater for the use of their iconic venue for the Vincent Chin 40th commemoration events, and the International Institute, home to generations of immigrants and refugees, for hosting the inaugural Midwest Asian American Documentary Filmmakers Convening.
Excellent toolkits to address anti-Asian hate can be found at TAAF.org/toolkit, AsianAmtookit.org, www.WeAreTeachers.com/resources-anti-asian-discrimination, www.NAPABA.org/page/HateCrimeResources; and other resources that can be found online.
STAND UP AGAINST HATE
Detroit, Michigan
San Francisco, California
ACKNOWLEDGE
that Anti-Asian racism exists: educate yourself and others
AMPLIFY AND ORGANIZE
Use your social networks and organize to amplify and condemn anti-Asian racism and hate against any people
OPPOSE AND REJECT
Anti-Asian and other racist and hateful language and policies
EQUIP
yourself and others with in-the-moment tools—online resources and social media
PRACTICE
your own strong reaction and defenses
PREPARE FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
Discuss racial prejudice, name calling, bullying, and empower them with actions and language to respond
REPORT
racial incidents and alert authorities and media
ACCOUNTABILITY WITH CONSEQUENCES
Engage officials on the local, state, and national levels
SUPPORT
Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and other communities of colors’ nonprofits and businesses
EDUCATE
using all platforms and media, reaching out to K-12 and higher education, encourage officials at all levels to provide resources and teacher support for Asian American curricula
This Legacy Guide is available at VincentChin.org in English and will also be available in other Asian languages on the website. For more information, including how to obtain copies for your school system, contact info@vincentchin.org.
ISBN 979-8-218-00642-6
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