Asian Americans ‘Scream for Help’ as Abuses Increase: Congressional Hearing

Anthony Roberts, 33, and Olivia Roberts, 28, walk to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial outside Gold Spa after deadly shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, USA on March 18, 2021. REUTERS / Shannon Stapleton

WASHINGTON – American lawmakers, professors and actor Daniel Dae Kim said the Asian-American community was reeling from a year of intense anti-Asian attacks at a congressional hearing held just days after the murder of six Asian women in Georgia.

Thursday’s hearing, which was scheduled before the attack, was aimed at examining an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans, which rose 149% in 2020 in 16 major cities compared to 2019, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

“Our community is bleeding, we are in pain, and for the past year we have been crying out for help,” Democratic Rep. Grace Meng told the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Experts have linked the rise to the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China, after some Americans, including former Republican President Donald Trump, began calling the coronavirus the “China virus,” “the plague of China “and even” kung flu. “

A 21-year-old white man was charged with killing eight people, six of them Asian women, at three spas in the Atlanta area on Tuesday. Police are investigating the motives and have not ruled out the possibility that the attacks were sparked, at least in part, by anti-immigrant or anti-Asian sentiments.

The increase in incidents against Asian Americans in the past year included people being stabbed with a box cutter, setting fire and verbal harassment, said Steve Cohen, Democratic chair of the subcommittee.

“All the pandemic did was exacerbate latent anti-Asian biases that have a long, long and ugly history in America,” Cohen said.

Kim, best known for starring in the television series “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-0,” called on lawmakers to pass laws to fund groups that provide advice to victims of hate crimes and improve data collection for reporting. of hate crimes.

“What happens now and over the next few months will send a message to generations to come about whether we are important, about whether the country we call home chooses to erase or include us,” Kim said.

In the narrowly divided House, the audience quickly turned to partisan politics.

In a lengthy opening speech, Republican lawmaker Chip Roy said the issue was important but then went on to attack China’s treatment of its Uighur community and handling of the coronavirus.

He added that he hoped the hearing would address how affirmative action policies of American universities harm Asian Americans.

Repeatedly, Democratic lawmakers referenced Roy’s comments in their own remarks.

“Your president, your party, and your colleagues can talk about problems with any other country they want, but they don’t have to by eyeing the backs of Asian Americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our children,” Meng said. .

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said US President Joe Biden, who will meet with Asian-American leaders in Atlanta on Friday, was determined to be “part of the solution, not the problem.”

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