Last week, approximately 1.5 billion people celebrated Lunar New Year around the world — one of the most significant holidays throughout many cultures in Asia. A time centered around family and community to practice gratitude, to show care and love through foods with meaning, and to wish one another health, prosperity, wholeness, and good fortune for the new year.
I made dumplings and my (self-proclaimed) famous Taiwanese popcorn chicken for my family — we feasted, rested, and feasted some more.
But the festivities were overcast by heaviness, sadness, and anxiety. Anti-Asian hate crimes are surging in this country. Between March and December 2020, Stop AAPI Hate, an anti-discrimination coalition focused on the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, received 2,808 reports of anti-Asian attacks across the country. These are just the ones that we know of. Vulnerable elders, particularly elderly women, are disproportionately more likely to suffer from these hate crimes than other gender and age groups within the AAPI community.
Why is the surge of anti-Asian violence happening?
Because words matter. When the former presidential administration used terms like “the China virus” and “kung flu ” instead of coronavirus or COVID-19, it gave permission, power, and fuel to xenophobia and anti-Asian racism. In the midst of the global pandemic, the typical “model minority” characterization of the AAPI community was no longer convenient to sow division, so the racist narrative of “forever foreigner” had to be amplified.
One of the most distressing reckonings for me about the attacks was that no matter how frequent, violent, and egregious the hate crimes were, they were not deemed newsworthy by mainstream media -- the attacks were not important enough to register into the American consciousness.
In a recent New York Times feature, actor Steve Yeun said, “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you.” This quote stops me in my tracks every time I read it, recite it, or remember it. It locks me in its truth.
Prominent AAPI figures such as Daniel Dae Kim, Amanda Nguyễn, Olivia Munn, and Daniel Wu have been rallying their visibility and organizing with AAPI civil rights groups to gain more coverage and awareness of the anti-Asian hate crimes taking place. Our collective voices demanded and finally received attention in recent weeks.
And Black, Latinx, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities are showing their solidarity in support of the AAPI community. White allies, too. AAPI civil rights activists are also reminding our own communities to not fall into the anti-Blackness trap laid by white supremacy as we grieve and process our anger. All this shows me that there is hope and healing ahead because the anti-racist movement leaves no one behind.
Let’s keep being there for one another and let’s keep going.
