Disgusting attacks, slurs follow Asian-American’s op-ed in The Bee. This must stop
Disgusting attacks on social media. Shameful slurs yelled at them. Physical violence. This is what Asian Americans in Fresno are experiencing these days.
The killing of eight people, with six of them Asian American women at massage parlors in Atlanta on March 16, rightfully shocked the nation. But it was hardly the first racist hate attack in the past year. Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition of groups that address anti-Asian discrimination, reported that 3,800 hate incidents occurred from March 19, 2020 to Feb. 28 of this year.
And now Fresno’s Geri Yang-Johnson had her own recent social media incident to add to the list.
She wrote a Valley Voice essay about her experiences over the past year of the COVID pandemic; The Bee published it on March 19. Two days later, she opened her private Facebook account to find a long post by someone called Ruth’s Patterns, an alias for the real writer.
“It is time to expel from the USA ALL ASIANS who are trying to overthrow the U.S. government,” said the first post. Nevermind the fact that Yang-Johnson was born in San Diego and then moved to Fresno as a child and has lived here since. A member of Fresno’s large Hmong community, she is a proud Fresno State graduate — and a proud American.
A second post mentioned how “you have a Caucasian husband that you probably stole from a Caucasian woman. That is what Asians do, they break up families and then kill the male who was stupid enough to abandon his duty to his wife he divorces to marry an Asian.”
How scary, hurtful and offensive. Subsequent posts were equally ridiculous and outrageous, saying things like how Chinese, Filipino and Mexican women marry American husbands and then slowly poison them. No one should have to read such garbage in their Facebook feed. Yang-Johnson struggled to hold back tears as she related what she read.
“I think that goes back to the stereotype that we we will always be labeled as foreigners, not human; it is a degradation of our dignity as people, as human beings,” she said.
Other racist attacks
Hers was not the only incident of hate targeting Asians in this community.
Christine Barker, executive director of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, said she knows of three cases this year in which Asian people were physically assaulted. Two of them did not result in serious injury; in the third, a man was taken to a hospital for a head injury. Anti-Asian slurs were uttered in each incident.
Her program helps about 10,000 people a year, most of them immigrants from Southeast Asia. “It is hard to overstate how worried people have been since the first rumors of this pandemic,” she said.
“I have heard so many tips on how to protect yourself. Don’t go out alone, don’t go out at night. People are worried about getting killed.”
Officially, the number of incidents in Fresno is small. Fresno police say there was only one case in 2020 of a bias-motivated crime against an Asian person. So far this year, there is one case logged — graffiti was written on a car.
But official statistics can be misleading. Advocates say few Asian Americans want to report their crimes. Sometimes there is a language barrier. Sometimes there is suspicion toward institutions.
Asian Americans are a significant population in Fresno County. According to the U.S. Census, in July 2019 Asians represented 11.1% of the county’s population. Hispanic/Latino was 53.8%; white non-Hispanic was 28.6%.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders get wrongly blamed for the coronavirus pandemic. Former President Trump helped inflame the anger by repeatedly calling it the “kung flu” and “China flu.”
Racial hatred against Asians in America is not new. It began with the violence that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which banned Chinese immigration. During World War II Japanese Americans were rounded up and herded to internment camps, ostensibly because they were possible spies for Japan, America’s enemy at the time.
What Fresnans can do
This editorial barely skims the surface of the pain Asian Americans in Fresno and across the nation are feeling right now. So what can Valley residents do in response?
For one, pay simple courtesy and kindness toward local Asian Americans. Treat them with the respect you would want to receive.
While Fresno is home to a wide spectrum of races and ethnicities, too often they exist apart. Make 2021 a year to get to know someone in the Asian American or Pacific Islander community.
If you encounter someone haranguing an Asian person over their race, speak up and demand that it be stopped. The AAPI Hate report is full of testimonials of Asian Americans being targeted in public, and no one rose in their defense.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to really be a model of what a beautiful community can be, but we have such deep-rooted racism and disparities that have to be addressed,” said Yang-Johnson. “We all have to work at alleviating that.”