Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

Three Pilipino Campaigns for Justice in California

Two cases of anti-Asian violence and one of police murder of a Pilipino veteran

Progressive Asian Network for Action, in conjunction with Neighborhood Safety Companions, supports these campaigns for justice and encourages you to do the same today:

Justice for the Roques

Justice for the Arriolas

Justice for Angelo Quinto


Categories
Anti-Asian Violence Education

Getting Serious About Stopping Anti-Asian Violence

Neighborhood Safety Companions publishes their “framework” approach to addressing still-rising anti-Asian violence

Members of PANA initiated Neighborhood Safety Companions (NSC) in March 2021 to provide a vehicle for those willing to stand up to the violent attacks on Asian Americans across the U.S. and world. As an extension of PANA members’ work to win full equality for Asian Americans, the work PANA members do in NSC is an extension of our efforts to build political power and solidarity to win the societal change that our communities need. Please support these efforts.

https://safetywalks.org/what-is-needed-to-end-anti-asian-violence/


“If one is to be serious about putting an end to racist anti-Asian violence, there has to be an addressing of causal factors. Advocating increased policing or crimes reporting alone fail to address the problem at the street level. Few Asian/Pacific Islander organizations are advocating direct aid to victims and families like Neighborhood Safety Companions (NSC) does. This needs to change. Our “demands” are a work in progress, but hopefully, what we present can encourage further discussion and constructive debate.”

Demands for ending anti-Asian violence We Protect Us
Categories
Anti-Asian Violence Uncategorized

Investigate the Wintersburg Church in Huntington Beach Fire as a Possible Hate Crime

From Neighborhood Safety Companions:


Historic Wintersburgh Press Conference March 19, 2022
https://safetywalks.org/investigate-wintersburg/

On February 25, 2022, fire destroyed 2 of the 6 buildings at Historic Wintersburg, and is now under investigation for possible arson. Republic Services, owners of the property, demolished both buildings several hours after the fire, destroying evidence for the investigation. They previously applied to demolish all 6 historic buildings so they can develop or sell. In the lead up to the fire, Historic Wintersburg volunteers have been attacked by racists on social media, stalked, photographed, and been subjected to other acts of intimidation against the preservation project.

 

Mary Urashima, organizer for the project, has requested that organizations and individuals write letters to the Huntington Beach mayor and city council demanding:

 

  • An arson investigation. 
  • That Republic Services cooperate with government agencies to help preserve the buildings.
  • To bring Republic Services to the bargaining table to arrange a purchase of the property by preservationists. 

 

The addresses to email are Mayor Barbara Delgleize, [email protected]. City Council, [email protected]. (Urashima)

Commenters on social media have demanded independent state and federal level investigations, which have been done before, to investigate the Fountain Valley PD in the 1980s and 1990s. (Hayashida, NSC)

 

This fire happened as hate incidents have skyrocketed across the country. A recent report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism said hate incidents, which include hate crimes, have increased 339% from 2020 through 2021. (Yam)

 

Attacks against Asian Places of Worship in 2020 and 2021, locally, have been numerous and dramatic.

 

  • Six Buddhist temples in Orange County were vandalized, and people were verbally harassed, in November and December of 2020. (Introvigne, Kandil)
  • Higashi Honganji in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo was vandalized, and arson attempted. (Peralta)
  • Konko Church, a Shinto shrine in Boyle Heights, was attacked by arsonists twice. (Yamamoto)
  • An old Japanese American church in Sacramento was vandalized. (CBS Sacramento, CAIR)
  • Two Seattle, WA churches were vandalized with graffiti including “China, you will pay,” “go home” and “f–k China,” even though only 5% of the congregation was Chinese. (Chen, Esteban)
  • Three statues were destroyed at Wat Lao Santitham, a Buddhist temple in the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas. (Stills)
  • In Calgary, Canada, a Vietnamese Canadian church was burned. (CBC News)

 

Other sources report additional incidents at temples, mosques, video conference church meetings. (Kandil, ACLU, Borja)

 

Vandalism against ethnic churches should be understood intersectionality, as not only an attack against a place of worship, and not only as an attack against a specific minority, but an attack against the intersection of the two. 

 

Racists, typically white Christians, have attacked Black Christian churches and other houses of worship since they originated, because the serve as community political centers to defend Black people, and increase Black power. (Boddie)  Japanese American faith organizations have similar functions: popular mobilization, protection, and power. 

 

Causes for anti-Asian violence and vandalism are numerous, but it’s often irrational, where general anger from one situation results in violence against an Asian person or Asian institution completely unrelated to that situation.

 

  • China is blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic, and Asian people in western countries experience rising rates of violence. (Yam)
  • The infamous murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, was by autoworkers angry about international competition from cars made in Japan. (Guillermo)
  • In 2016, when North Korea was in the news for nuclear missile testing, a Korean American church in Buena Park was vandalized with swastikas. (Ryan)
  • In 1984 three Vietnam war veterans burned a Tibetan Buddhist temple after dissatisfaction with Veterans Affairs, a US government agency. (Kandil)

 

The fire at this historic site is happening at the same time that reactionaries are mounting an attack on “Critical Race Theory”, or CRT, in the state legislatures. CRT is a legal theory, but their use of CRT is a code word for Ethnic Studies and accurate U.S. history. It’s a push back against teaching minority histories in the schools. (Sawchuck) 

 

It’s against this ambient and legislative attack on history education that we must consider this fire could have been arson, motivated by hatred or anger at a racial minority.

 

References

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

Record-breaking hate crime spree in major cities

Axios.com

Feb 5, 2022 – Politics & Policy

Russell Contreras, Shawna Chen

Hate Crimes Surge Across US Cities

Black Americans remained the most targeted group in most cities, but anti-Asian American hate crimes increased 339% in 2021, the preliminary report found.

  • Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City broke records with the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans, while Georgia saw the largest number of fatal events with six Asian women murdered in two attacks.
  • In New York City, the number of anti-Asian American hate crimes jumped from 30 in 2020 to 133 last year.
  • Stop AAPI Hate documented over 10,300 self-reported anti-AAPI incidents from March 2020 through September 2021, with women reporting at higher rates.
  • Though Asian Americans have always been subject to racism, the majority of the last two years has been “in crisis mode,” Cynthia Choi, Stop AAPI Hate co-founder and executive director of the advocacy group Chinese for Affirmative Action, told Axios.
  • “The fact that we have members of our community who are afraid to leave their homes, to go to work, to take public transportation to go to the grocery store, to basically live our daily lives is heartbreaking,” said Choi. Her organization is based in San Francisco, where reported anti-AAPI hate crimes surged 567% in 2021.

Continue reading HERE.

Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA) continues to work with other to build the solidarity necessary to fight this rise in hate crimes. Please join this important community event in Koreatown, Los Angeles, on February 16: https://safetywalks.org/feb16

Honoring Victims of Anti-Asian Violence February 16

Categories
Healthcare

Asian American young adults are the only racial group with suicide as their leading cause of death, so why is no one talking about this?

Read the article posted on TheConversation.com
https://theconversation.com/asian-american-young-adults-are-the-only-racial-group-with-suicide-as-their-leading-cause-of-death-so-why-is-no-one-talking-about-this-158030


Suicide is the Number One Cause of Death for Young Asian Americans

In California, we urge you to support the campaign to pass AB 1400. This major healthcare reform bill would help rebuild the mental healthcare infrastructure destroyed by Ronald Reagan and Republicans in the 1980’s.

Racially motivated violence looks like the mass shootings that killed Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Chung Park, Hyun Grant and Suncha Kim in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Racially motivated violence also looks like suicide, which is defined as a deliberate act of self-directed violence in order to cause injury to oneself that results in death.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. When broken down by race, suicide is the first leading cause of death among Asian American young adults age 15-24. This is true of no other racial group in this age range in America.

AB 1400 calls for the implementation of policies to ensure that all residents of this state have access to medically appropriate, coordinated mental health services.

This bill is also historic, in that it directly addresses the need for multilingual and culturally-appropriate health services.  These are of particular concern for Asian American communities, which are nearly 60% immigrant in demographic composition.

To take action to win mental healthcare-for-all in CA:  https://healthcareforall-la.org/wp/take-action/

Categories
Healthcare

PANA Urges AB 1400 “Aye” Vote

PANA logo small


January 5, 2022

 

 

Assembly Member Jim Wood, Chair and Members

Assembly Health Committee

 

 

RE: AB 1400 (Kalra, Lee, Santiago)SUPPORT

 

 

Dear Chair Wood and Committee Members,

 

The Asian American community is experiencing an upsurge in hate crimes due to scapegoating of Chinese people as being the cause of the pandemic. Racist violence is not a new thing for Asian Americans as discrimination has been a historical condition – not just on the streets, but through systemic racism, including disparities in healthcare.

 

In 2018, 25 percent of Korean Americans and 20 percent of Vietnamese Americans had no health coverage. The Affordable Care Act helped alleviate those numbers, but no updates have been conducted after millions lost their jobs and insurance during the pandemic. Asian American data research is lacking and facts, such as 69% of the Thai American community being uninsured, are not well known.

 

In 2019, the leading cause of death among Asian Americans aged 15-24 was suicide. To this day, suicide is still among the top causes of death for young Asian Americans. In the U.S., this is true for no other racial group in the same age range. The mental healthcare system is inadequate and inaccessible to many.

 

Last year, over 80 Japanese American seniors in a Los Angeles intermediate care facility were evicted from their home because the corporate owner wanted to convert it to market-rate apartments. Even against the pleas of 10 licensed physicians, the CA government did not keep them safe during the pandemic. No other intermediate care facilities in the U.S. have the same level of Japanese-speaking staff and culturally-appropriate services. 

 

Assembly Bill 1400 would provide groups facing healthcare disparities the help they need. The bill would create a single payer healthcare system that would cover all Californians regardless of citizenship, age, income, or employment status.

 

Under AB 1400, young people can access mental health services and elders can receive bilingual and bi-cultural healthcare. Non-English speaking people can have difficulty explaining their problems to medical staff, especially if they’re under duress. Doctors and nurses who only know a Western viewpoint, may not know how to communicate with patients of different cultures.

 

Hate crime victims and their families will no longer need to launch GoFundMe pages to pay for medical treatment due to lack of health coverage.

 

California has 85 percent of Democratic voters who support a single payer system and 61 percent of voters of various political views support it. The public support for AB1400 is there because the need exists. Our current governor was elected partially because he pledged to support single-payer reform. To have 3.2 million Californians without healthcare insurance in our wealthy state is a travesty.

 

AB1400 will be the safety net for our most vulnerable communities who are suffering in silence due to healthcare racism and inequality. This is why members of the Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA) back this bill and urge you to vote “Aye” for AB 1400, which will save many lives. 

 

 

 

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

Steering Committee
Progressive Asian Network for Action

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

Neighborhood Safety Companions Promotes a Community Safety Model in Response to Anti-Asian Violence

Through direct interaction with local seniors, small businesses, workers, street vendors, housed and un-housed neighbors, the NSC street-walk teams hold conversations about their efforts to combat Anti-Asian Violence. NSC also engages in mutual aid, distributing safety supplies (whistles, personal alarms, pepper spray) and personal health items (personal hygiene items, alcohol wipes, masks, socks, etc).

 

 

PANA members working on the NSC effort also try to connect the work to the larger battles for healthcare, quality housing, social services and the need to build solidarity between various social movements.

 

 

NSC recently launched a new website to compliment their ongoing presence on Instagram. NSC is also looking for a non-profit fiscal sponsor so as to pursue financial support for their work and restocking supplies.

 

NSC Logo Horiz cropped

 


   

Please visit and share the new NSC webpage and follow NSC on Instagram. Better yet, join NSC!

Website of Neighborhood Safety Companions: https://safetywalks.org

 

On Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/neighborhoodsafetycompanions/

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

Vilifying China Puts a Bull’s-Eye on the Backs of Asian Americans

Biden may reject Trump’s hateful language, but he is continuing his predecessor’s dangerous “tough on China” approach.

By Mae Ngai

March 23, 2021

The Nation

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/anti-asian-racism-china/

Biden may reject the hateful language of “China virus,” but he is extending the “tough on China” policy, which was the overall framework for so many of Trump’s racist tweets and remarks. This bodes poorly both for US-China relations and for Asian Americans, whose treatment has always been connected to Americans’ perceptions of the region.

PANA expects that anti-Asian racism and violence will continue to be supported by anti-China rhetoric coming out of the Biden Administration, including continued increase in propaganda to justify U.S. military provocation in the Asia/Pacific region, either directly or via proxy (e.g. Japan, Duterte).

 

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

SUPPORT WI SPA, SAY NO TO RACISM and TERROR

September, 2021: The staff, workers, customers and neighbors of Wi Spa have been subjected to racist violence and terror by far right extremists over the past few months. It is time the Asian communities recognized and supported Wi Spa.

WiSpa001

“When they (Proud Boys) come to protest, the police shut down this place for over 3 hours. We cannot make money, customers afraid and cannot go in and out and people don’t want to come near. This is very bad for us and for business.”

– Chloey, Wi Spa staff

About 30 members of the “Proud Boys”, an armed white supremacist paramilitary group have come to Westlake on the east edge of Koreatown twice to protest Wi Spa for serving transgender people.

They believe transgender people should not be served. A video was allegedly shot of a transgendered person displaying genitalia inside the spa during the summer. The video went viral on far right news stations and Fox Mews. Then L.A. transgender activists were targeted on social media. Then, the protests began.

When these people attack Wi Spa’s right to serve trans people with their threats of violence, dozens of workers and customers are stuck inside and terrified. For Manager Jonathan, a Korean American and the Korean workers and staff, it means loss of income and a bad reputation. The surrounding neighborhood is forced to avoid the area including a high school located just 1 block north of the spa. Two people were stabbed at one of the confrontations and one pro-Wi Spa supporter was shot by the LAPD with rubber bullets.

The media has portrayed the Wi Spa incidents and violence as a protest by far right extremists against Wi Spa for allowing a transgender customer into the spa.

Although the intent of the Proud Boys is to express their homophobia and hatred for the LGBTQ community, their actions are anti-Asian racist in nature regardless of intent due to the terror and damage to Korean workers and it’s owners and customers.

The far right extremist Proud Boys must be condemned for both their virulent anti-trans homophobic actions and their anti-Asian racism stepping on the rights and dignity of the Korean business as they “protest’ LGBTQ customers

Extremists like the proud Boys now have the arrogance and audacity to organize terror demonstrations into L.A.’s majority people-of-color neighborhoods.

“We are only following the law. The law says we cannot discriminate against transgender people. What is wrong with that?”

– Jonathan, Manager and Korean American
Wi Spa force to close for hours
July 31, 2021: Wi Spa forced to shut down for hours due to racists’ threat of violence

System changers, progressives and reformers must work with and unite the broad masses of working class folks, small business and urban professionals especially in our POC communities against the far right. At the same time we must continue struggling with liberals over economic and foreign policy issues influenced by the republicans and win them over to the most progressive stances at the moment.

  • We urge community organizations to educate our communities about these dangers in our neighborhood and the threat to our country.
  • We urge community groups to take strong public stands against these fascists as the first step to prevent future attacks. (Currently, PANA and Neighborhood Safety Companions members are collecting statements to gather together and publish online and in other venues.)
  • We urge community groups to join us at the next Proud Boy protest into Koreatown to sent a message, they are not welcome.
  • We urge Neighborhood Councils in Koreatown, Westlake and surrounding neighborhoods to condemn the Proud Boy fascists.
  • The LAPD must enforce the law and arrest these fascist for violent crimes, not assist them by arresting mostly counter protesters.
  • Neighborhood Safety Companions, KoreatownProgressive Asian Network for Action
  • Korean Resource Center (KRC)
  • No Harm Koreatown LA
  • Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA)
  • StreetWatch-LA
  • ANSWER Coalition
  • J-town Action and Solidarity (JAS)
  • Save Our Seniors Network (SOSN)

Please contact PANA at [email protected] to endorse this position in support of Wi Spa and against fascist violence against transgender people.

Chronology:

  • June 23 2021- A Wi Spa customer, “Cubana Angel” made a video of herself complaining that a trans woman customer with male genitalia was in the women’s section. The video went viral.

The video is portrayed as a negative example and condemns Wi Spa. The spa asserts it is simply obeying CA Civil Code 51B which forbids discrimination against transgender customers. Moreover, records at Wi Spa do not show any transgender customers coming to the spa on June 23 for appointments.

  • Right wing talk shows like Tucker Carlson and fascist websites prop up the story and agitate reactionary responses.
  • July 3 2021- First “protest” by Proud Boys. Results in violent confrontations between the groups.
  • July 17- Results in 40 arrests mostly counter protesters who oppose the Proud Boys. Violence breaks out after a Proud Boy stabs a demonstrator and an LAPD cop shoots a counter protester at point blank range after she plead not to shoot.
  • July 31, 2021- The Proud Boys did not show up to this protest. However the LAPD made one arrest of a counter protester for “resisting arrest.”

Wi Spa: A Nightmare Scenario

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/anti-trans-video-los-angeles-protest-wi-spa

LAPD cop shoots counter protester after she pleads, “don’t shoot.”

https://abc7.com/wi-spa-protest-lapd-alert-wilshire/10896057/

210717 Proud Boys Demonstration 1
July 17 LAPD Outside of Wi Spa
July 17 Proud Boys Demonstration turns violent with 40 arrests
July 30, 2021 PANA Joins Counter Protest to Defend Wi Spa
July 30: PANA and Neighborhood Safety Companions members join counter protest against Proud Boys

Delivery of Safety Equipment to Wi Spa Staff

Neighborhood Safety Companions Deliver Safety Supplies to Wi Spa Staff
Oct. 7, 2021: Neighborhood Safety Companions deliver Safety Equipment for Wi Spa Staff
Categories
Political Power

Asians Uniting Against Anti-Asian Violence

Trauma and Trump make Asian American voters a more cohesive bloc, new poll reveals

Ahead of the 2022 midterms, the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders are significantly more likely to be mobilized by a shared fear of violence and discrimination than before the pandemic.

From Politico.com, by Rishika Dugyala and Beatrice Jin | 10/3/2021

Politico-MorningConsultPoll

In this article, the authors discuss how the rise in violence directed towards Asians in the U.S. and around the world has led to many turning towards multi-Asian unity as a strategic political stance. 

According to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll, there has been a significant increase in the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders that now identify with the broader “Asian/Pacific Islander American” or “Asian American/Pacific Islander” label and not only their individual nationality alone.

In PANA’s analysis of this development, while defeated President Donald Trump was the leading promoter of racist anti-Asian scapegoating (calling COVID-19 the “Kung Flu Virus”),  anti-Asian rhetoric has also been spread by the likes of Democratic Party officials such as Joe Biden (China bashing and warmongering) and CA Governor Gavin Newsom (blaming Vietnamese Nail Salons for the spread of COVID-19).  Due to Trump and the ground-level MAGA forces high profile and the less antagonistic and diverse base of the Democratic Party, however, the Asian/Pacific Islander demographic will naturally skew anti-Republican.

Read the article here: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/asian-american-community-voting-trends-polling/

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence

University of Michigan Chronicles More Than 1,000 Anti-Asian Incidents Last Year

New research from the University of Michigan offers insights into the location, nature and perpetrators of anti-Asian hate incidents that occurred in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Available information suggests the perpetrators of anti-Asian hate incidents were predominantly male and disproportionately white. Among politicians who made stigmatizing statements and supported discriminatory policies and proposals, the primary perpetrators were white, male and affiliated with the Republican Party.

May 18, 2021
anti-asian-hate-u-m-chronicles-location-na
Anti-Asian Hat protest. Image Credit: Kareem Hayes on Unsplash

More information:


Categories
Anti-Asian Violence History

Racism Has Always Been Part of the Asian American Experience

If we don’t understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/we-are-constantly-reproducing-anti-asian-racism/618647


April 21, 2021

Mae Ngai

Asian American Studies and history professor at Columbia University

Asiatic exclusion and Jim Crow segregation were two modes of racial management necessary for white supremacy after the Civil War, when the West and the South were being integrated into a national economy based on corporate capital and a polity made up of white male voters. These policies relied on euphemisms and legal fictions—“aliens ineligible to citizenship” and “separate but equal”—to work around the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal protection and due process for all. Indeed, in the late 19th century, the Supreme Court would interpret the Fourteenth Amendment to favor the rights of capital, and not those of formerly enslaved people or Asian immigrants.

Take Action locally against Anti-Asian Violence:

Neighborhood Safety Companions website: https://safetywalks.org
Follow NSC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neighborhoodsafetycompanions/

ko_KRKorean