[Content Warning: race-based violence against BIPOC, particularly Asian communities]
May marks the start of Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month in the United States. While celebrating milestones and accomplishments of Asian communities is important, so is reflecting on the racialized violence that Asian communities have experienced in the past year and beyond. In order to aid in learning about how racialized violence against Asians has existed in the fabric of the United States, as well as how that impacts health disparities in Asian communities, we have created a new landing page in our Anti-Racism Resources Guide. This rotating landing page focusing on Asian communities also hopes to help highlight parallels between the sufferings of other marginalized communities in the United States in order to recognize the fact that all those who are minoritized are being harmed under the same systems of oppression of white supremacy.
On Tuesday, March 16, 2021, 8 people were murdered in Atlanta, GA at two separate Asian spa locations. 6 of the 8 who were killed identified as Asian and all but one were women. While not all who were killed identified as Asian, many have voiced that these murders happened because a white man targeted Asian women specifically to eliminate his sexual temptations. (More reporting can be found online at the New York Times through this link).
These murders, however, are not the only violent acts that have been perpetrated in Asian communities. As the organization Stop AAPI Hate reports, out of the reported incidents alone, there have been 3,292 incidents in 2020 and 503 incidents that have occurred thus far in 2021 (for the National Report from Stop AAPI Hate and more, visit their website). This violence towards Asians have ranged from spitting, verbal abuse, death, and more. From the stabbing of a 36-year-old man in New York City’s Chinatown, to elder Xie Xiaozhen being punched in the face by a white man in San Francisco, to the murder of elder Vichar Ratanapakdee also in San Francisco, to children as young as 2 and 6 years old being stabbed at a Sam’s Club in Texas, many reports have gone viral. Furthermore, while these attacks have mostly occurred in East Asian and Southeast Asian communities, for decades, the Middle Eastern and South Asian communities have been targeted due to the 9/11 tragedy. Most recently, the Sikh community was attacked in Indianapolis where 4 of 8 victims identified as Sikh. Many more Asians have suffered attacks without their stories being reported or cared about in mainstream media, at their schools, and at their workplaces.
These incidents of hate and violence are not happening in a vacuum. The goal of the resources shared on our new landing page is to provide context for the racialized violence against Asians in the United States, explore its impact on the health sciences, and aid in unlearning these harmful practices.
As always, if you have suggestions on additions to the resource guide, please feel free to fill out the survey linked here.
Post contributed by Andrea Kang, Amanda Nevius, and Christina Heinrich
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