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BY: | DATE: Mar 19, 2021

We woke Wednesday morning to hear the tragic news that Soon C. Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong A. Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Adre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng, were killed in a shooting spree in the Atlanta spa district.

We are horrified by the intensifying white supremacist violence shaped by labor exploitation (though we note that sex work is not inherently exploitative and that perpetuation compounds harm), sexual violence, and centuries of colonial domination. We are horrified by the continuing acts of violence, hate, and discrimination against members of our Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across the country, including within our own city, and stand in solidarity with the survivors, victims, and their families.

We recognize that incidents of physical and verbal assault against people of Asian heritage have increased precipitously across the country in recent months. In New York City, there are increasingly frequent reports of anti-Asian violence and bias, some of which have been deadly. According to NYC.gov’s Stop Asian Hate toolkit, there were 30 self-reported incidents in 2020, compared to 1 in 2019. According to Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition focused on combatting the rise in racism against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 150% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020 and there have been more than 2,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate were reported between March 19 and December 31 alone.

We also recognize that while racism against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have risen amidst the global pandemic, there is a long and tragic history of Anti-Asian sentiment and racism in the United States, including the Page Act of 1875 (first federal law restricting immigration, specifically targeting East Asian women), the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, lynchings, including the mass lynching of eighteen Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles in 1871 and of Filipino Americans in the 1920s and 1930s in California, the incarceration of Japanese heritage during World War II, Islamophobia, and the increased policing of South Asian communities post-9/11 which are all underreported. We condemn all anti-Asian racism, whether it stems from state action, state inaction, or the continuing, commonplace daily acts of hate and violence.

Faculty, staff, and students in our community who are members of Asian American, Pacific Islander, and South Asian communities are fearful for their lives and experiencing personal trauma because of these events, which compound the cultural trauma of our unfortunate history of anti-Asian racism.

We urge our community to adopt the call of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund:

True safety for all must come in the form of investment and resources, not punitive measures that create division and reinforce our criminal justice system’s discriminatory structures. Many grassroots Asian American organizations have worked for decades as part of multiracial efforts to secure such resources for all of our communities.

The solution to violence is not more violence in the form of aggressive and discriminatory law enforcement. Instead, we need interventions and responses that address the root causes of violence and that provide culturally and linguistically sensitive services for survivors, victims, and their families.

We also call for immediate and deep investments in our communities—including access to victims’ compensation funds, language accessibility, and culturally competent mental health services. We need community ambassador programs to accompany vulnerable community members home, bystander intervention training, equitable public school history curricula, cross-racial community and solidarity building, and restorative justice programs.

 

In that spirit, each of us must consider which of the resources here listed will best inform and support each of us at this time.  These resources both address critical aspects of support and community for our Asian and Asian-American colleagues and offer education and allyship opportunities for all of us.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC Training and Workshops 

Bystander Intervention Training: To stop anti-Asian/American and xenophobic harassment.

  • March 29 @ 3:00 PM ET/ 2:00 PM CT/ 1:00 PM MT/ 12:00 PM PT/ 10:00 AM HST. Register Here (Capped at 1000 participants)
  • April 20 @ 2:00 PM ET/ 1:00 PM CT/ 12:00 PM MT/ 11:00 AM PT/ 9:00 AM HST. Register Here (Capped at 1000 participants)

Bystander Intervention 2.0 Trainings on Conflict De-Escalation

  • April 2 @ 1:00 PM ET/ 12:00 PM CT/ 11:00 AM MT/ 10:00 AM PT/ 8:00 AM HST. Register Here
  • April 21 @ 4:00 PM ET/ 3:00 PM CT/ 2:00 PM MT/ 1:00 PM PT/ 11:00 AM HST. Register Here

How to Respond to Harassment for People Experiencing Anti-Asian/American Harassment.

  • March 19 @ 4:00 PM ET/03:00pm CT/ 02:00pm MT/ 01:00am PT/ 11:00am HST. Register Here
  • April 2 @ 5:00 PM ET/ 4:00 PM CT/ 3:00 PM MT/ 2:00 PM PT/ 12:00 PM HST. Register Here
  • April 15 @ 6:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM CT/ 4:00 PM MT/ 3:00 PM PT/ 1:00 PM HST. Register Here

Find your community: Connect with AAPI community organizations in New York

You can report a hate incident on this website:
https://stopaapihate.org/

Asian LifeNet Hotline  877-­990-8585

Asian American Legal Defense Fund
https://www.aaldef.org/contact-us/
https://www.aaldef.org/take-action/donate/

Asian Americans Advancing Justice
https://www.standagainsthatred.org/resources

Asian American and Pacific Islander mental health resources
https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Identity-and-Cultural-Dimensions/Asian-American-and-Pacific-Islander

Asian American and Pacific Islander | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

www.nami.org

Mental health conditions do not discriminate based on race, color, gender or identity. However, it’s important to recognize that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have unique concerns and experiences.

Mental Health Issues facing the Asian American Community
https://www.sunshinebehavioralhealth.com/resources/mental-health-issues-facing-the-asian-american-community/

 

Also, in the spirit of the AALDEF call, we list here some concrete actions already in the planning stages here at the Law School. We welcome leadership and guidance from APALSA and SALSA, but commit to doing the work and providing the resources necessary to build more support for our Asian and Asian-American colleagues and to build awareness and understanding throughout our community.

  1. An elective course offering in the fall: Asian Americans and the Law with Karen Kithan Yau
  2. An active look at curricula to have a global intersectional lens within our legal education
  3. Training or panel that addresses what legally and/or legislatively can be done to combat anti-Asian violence
  4. Panel surveying the history of racism and violence against Asian Americans and discussing current issues of systemic racism Asian Americans face, such as the pay gap, and poverty rates

Our community stands against racism of every kind. No one should be subject to violence and incidents of hate. Yet, Asian and Asian Americans across the country are experiencing such violence and hate more frequently than at any time in recent memory. I call on all of us to join together as a community to stand with our Asian and Asian American students, alumni, faculty, and staff and take action against anti-Asian hate.

 

Read statements from CUNY’s Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and South Asian Law Students Association, both of which participated in the creation of this statement.