![]() ![]() The activists I spoke to say this reaction is understandable, but that heavy policing won’t address the root causes of the problem. San Francisco is sending more officers to its Chinatown this weekend, and at least one owner of a robbed shop has called for more police presence, citing concerns that customers are now afraid to frequent businesses. Judaism Can’t Justify What Israel Is Doing How Gaza Became an Open-Air Prison in the First Place Maybe Timing Is What Plagues Kamala Harris Most of All The Horrendous Allegations Against Sound of Freedom’s Hero “We’re just seeing more visibility and compounded pressures of being blamed for the coronavirus.” “There has always been crime and violence happening to our communities that just hasn’t been covered and hasn’t been talked about or swept under the rug,” said Alvina Wong, field director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, an organization based in Oakland. Asian American advocacy groups in the region have been holding Facebook Live conferences and are planning gatherings during the Lunar New Year weekend that will partly provide community members with an outlet to process the events of the past few weeks. ![]() The San Francisco Bay Area has been a hot spot of these attacks. “People feel freer to perceive Asian Americans as outsiders and disease-carrying, so they’re more likely to threaten and attack us.” “I think they’re related in that there has been an overall anti-Asian climate that has given people license to attack Asians,” he said. Whatever the direct motivation behind these latest incidents, Jeung stressed that the prevailing xenophobia gripping the country has made such attacks more likely. “Leading up to Lunar New Year, there is a high level of crime targeting elders because they’re more vulnerable,” said Cynthia Choi, another founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co–executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco–based civil rights group. Some experts have noted that crime in Chinatowns tends to rise around the Lunar New Year, which is Friday, as more people with cash visit shops to purchase goods for celebrations. A number of alleged perpetrators are in custody, but authorities are still investigating the incidents and have released little information about motives. ![]() While it would be reasonable to guess the latest attacks against Asians are an extension of this xenophobia due to the sheer number of incidents, it’s probably too soon to say whether they were directly motivated by the coronavirus. Other incidents, many of which have also been caught on video, include assailants robbing Asian shopkeepers, customers, and pedestrians on the street. 3 in Manhattan, when someone slashed a 61-year-old Filipino man named Noel Quintana across the face on the subway. Surveillance footage of the assault went viral, returning the national spotlight to the racism Asians have faced throughout the coronavirus pandemic. 28 while he was taking a walk in San Francisco. In the most extreme case, an 84-year-old Thai man named Vicha Ratanapakdee died days after an assailant shoved him to the ground on Jan. Everyone is on guard-not just against the coronavirus, but against violence.Ī flurry of attacks against Asian Americans, primarily women and elderly people, has hit major U.S. Shops have been closing earlier and earlier in recent weeks, and police are being deployed to Chinatowns in the region in greater numbers. Instead of street fairs and packed crowds, mass gatherings are out of the question. Thanks to the pandemic, this was always going to be a subdued Lunar New Year in the San Francisco Bay Area. ![]()
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