She’s Hmong and endures racism directed at her. This Fresno woman is also an American
I am a proud Hmong woman. I am the daughter of elderly parents, a sister among nine sisters, and a mother who grieves and rages for the eight people whose lives were taken in Atlanta, six of them Asian women. This is one more tragic incident in a wave of increased violence against Asian Americans.
Watching news of these murders unfold, I raged at the words of Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, who said the killer was just having a “really bad day,” words that minimize the value of the lives lost and this utterly inexcusable crime. I rage when I see the killing of six Asian women dismissed because the killer claims his actions were motivated by sex addiction, rather than racism.
This incident triggers me. It reminds me of videos I’ve seen of elderly Asian American Pacific Islander people being attacked on the street and times I’ve been personally targeted in racist attacks. Yes, this incident enrages me, but it also puts fear in me. Fear for the safety of my parents, my aunties and uncles, for my community as a whole. As a daughter, sister, mother and auntie, not only do I carry my own fears; I also carry the fears I have for my family.
Stop AAPI Hate, a project that tracks and responds to incidents of hate against AAPI people, reports that there have been more than 3,500 incidents of hate crimes against Asians reported in the past year, ranging from verbal assaults, to physical attacks to murder. Of these incidents, 68% have been against Asian women.
Yet I have friends asking me if there is violence against AAPI people in the Central Valley. “We don’t have that problem here, do we?” they ask. I tell them yes, and that they don’t know because too often these incidents are not reported. I, myself, have been terrorized by a white supremacist who attempted to run me off the road. I feared for my life, and yet I still did not report the incident.
We are hearing stories questioning the killer’s motivation — was it a hate crime based in racism, or not? But here’s the thing. The separation between race and gender when it comes to the objectification of Asian and Pacific Islander women is a false one. It ignores the centuries-old belief in this country that API women are seen and treated as subservient and hypersexual objects rather than full human beings. This hypersexualization of API women is rooted in white supremacy, which makes it possible for others to falsely believe that our bodies belong to them, that we can be treated as slaves, servants, caretakers and sexual objects, but never respected for our full selves.
White supremacy has a stranglehold on our community. It is so embedded in our worldview that we sometimes question our power and our ability to fight against racism and oppression.
Anti-Asian hate has a long history in America. It has been both consistent and persistent, preventing us from being seen for our wholeness, our diversity and our contributions. Over the past 170 years we have contributed significantly to the development of our nation, yet our value is rarely acknowledged or seen as worthy of investment.
We won’t be able to uproot white supremacy without joining forces with other communities that suffer from its effects. Black and Brown communities have suffered for generations and continue to fight for equality and justice. We must join forces and view our struggles as connected.
The time is now to see Asian communities, to demand that our leaders push for policies that support our growth, to invest in us, to listen to us, respect us and protect us, for we are America and we belong here.
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 10:23 AM.