AAPI communities' historic weekend of spontaneous protests involves thousands

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Sandra Oh spoke to a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Starting Friday when President Biden and Vice President Harris met with AAPI leaders in Atlanta, it has been a weekend not seen in decades as thousands of AAPI and their allies staged a score of demonstrations around the United States.

Spurred by the mass shootings in Atlanta that killed eight, six of whom were Asian women, Asian Americans, Latinos, Blacks and Whites took to the streets and parks in unrelated demonstrations as if to say "Enough is enough."

The demonstrations protested not only the Atlanta rampage, but a year that has seen bias and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders surge to heights not seen since World War II, when 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from their homes and into incarceration camps.

Speaking through a bullhorn, the actress Sandra Oh had the crowd in Pittsburgh, Penn. chanting after her, “I am proud to be Asian,” she says. “We belong here.”

“For many of us in our community, this is the first time we are even able to voice our fear and our anger, and I really am so grateful for everyone willing to listen,” Oh said in videos. “One thing that I know is that many in our community are very scared, and I understand that. And one way to go through our fear is to reach out to our community.

“To everyone here," Oh continued, "I will challenge everyone here, if you see something, will you help me? If you see one of our sisters and brothers in need, will you help us?” she said, as the people chanted, “Yes!” in response. “We must understand, as Asian Americans, we just need to reach out our hand to our sisters and brothers and say, ‘Help me and I’m here.’”

From the big cities to the suburbs, AAPI gathered in apparently spontaneous demonstrations. They were angry, fearful and fed up for being targeted by racist bullies and for being blamed for the coronavirus pandemic. Many felt they just needed to do something. 

“We knew we had to do something about it,” John Zhuang told the Eagle Tribune,  the local newspaper of Andover, Mass., with 14% of its population of 37,000 of AAPI descent.

“I just want people to be aware and support us,” he added. “We are the same, dads and moms, and people of this country.”

In California, with the largest AAPI population outside of Asia, rallies were held in the cities that included San Francisco, Oakland, San Jjose, San DIego, and Los Angeles. Across the nation rallies were held in Seattle, Pittsburgh, PA, San Antonio and, of course, Atlanta;  vigils and rallies were held in the suburbs not used to demonstrations such as Andover, Mass., Cary, North Carolina, and the California 'burbs of Alhambra, Fullerton, Walnut Creek, and Brisbane,; even Boise, Idaho, where  AAPI makes up only 3% of the population held a rally organized by teenagers.

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In Atlanta, steel reeling from the deadly shootings, U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia House spoke at a rally.

“I just wanted to drop by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, we see you, and, more importantly, we are going to stand with you," Warnock said to loud cheers.

“No matter how you want to spin it, the facts remain the same. This was an attack on the Asian community,” said Nguyen, an advocate for women and communities of color. She noted the shooter targeted businesses operated by women of Asian descent.

“Let’s join hands with our ally community and demand justice for not only these victims but for all victims of white supremacy,” she said.

Camden Hunt, a Black activist, joined Saturday’s rally to “show Black and Asian solidarity, ” adding “I think it’s amazing. I look out and I see people of all shades and ages and backgrounds.”

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Hundreds attended a Saturday rally at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco.

“Whether we are grandparents, workers, women, or young people, we all deserve safety and it is clear the current systems are not working,” Shaw San Liu, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, said in a statement read in Portsmouth Square, the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown where several hundred gathered Saturday.

"Our members —many of whom are women, mothers living in the SROs, and young women — are risking their safety to go to work, providing childcare and caring for family members, navigating distance learning, and trying their best to preserve their mental health during these trying times. This is further exacerbating an already stressful time," the statement continued. 

 “We need to fight racism, economic inequality and sexism/gender-based violence with effective community-based solutions if we are to achieve true safety for our communities.”

After speaking with the daughter of Vicha Ratanapakdee, the 84-year old who was killed last month on his morning walk in San Francisco, 13-year old Ashlyn So felt compelled to speak out to the assembled crowd. “How many more of our people’s blood, black eyes, swollen faces, broken bones, must happen before we will be visible?” said the teenager.  “Before we will feel safe? Before we will be an equal?”

Teenagers organized the rally in Boise, Idaho, where about 100 people gathered on the steps of the State Capitol.

“As Asians, we’re supposed to be ‘quiet’ and ‘shy,’ ‘just keep your head down and work hard,’” Yvonne Shen, 13, of Boise told the gathering in Boise. “But we’ve kept our heads down for long enough. It’s time for us to stand up for ourselves.”

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Former Congressional candidate Gina Ortiz Jones, who organized the vigil, spoke to the several hundred who had gathered at San Antonio's Main Plaza Saturday.

Darsheel Kaur told the crowd at Dayton, Ohio's Courthouse Square that Americans love many aspects of Asian culture: yoga, anime, food, spiritualities and nail salons.

“But the moment of now is asking for us to be included in the larger human family,” Kaur said. “Not as the perpetual other, but as your neighbors and friends and colleagues and classmates, who have their own spirit stories and experiences reckoning with and resisting the white supremacy embedded in this land and soil.”

About 2,000 demonstrators rallied in New York City Saturday where local politicians including Mayor Bill DiBlasio and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer addressed the crowd.

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Senate Leader Chuck Schumer spoke to the Saturday demonstrators in New York City.

Senator Schuimer called out Donald Trump for his use of racist rhetoric tying Asians to the coronavirus.

“We will not let bigotry prevail against Asian Americans or any American. We know that violence and bigotry against one is violence and bigotry against all. We stand firm. We speak to the better angels of America,” Schumer declared. “We’ll fight violence with every atom in our bones, and we, not the bigots, not those who are violent, we will win this fight and prevail.”

The attacks against AAPI continue. Friday morning, another elderly Asian man was attacked for no apparent reason other than he was Asian. The 68-year old victims was punched in the face while riding the subway after the attacker said, "You M***F*** Asian!"

The victim was taken to a hospital where he remains because he was in critical, but not life-threatening, condition.

Meanwhile, as people began arriving for another rally in Columbus Park in Manhattan,  at 9 a.m., Sunday, a 66-year old Asian man was punched in the face in New York's Chinatown. Despite a swollen face and puffy eyes, the victim refused hospitalization.

And a 37-year old woman on her way to the Sunday rally with her daughter. She had her handmade sign taken away and when she tried to retrieve it, her attacker punched her twice in the face. She was hospitalized but she was able to get a recording of the man as he ran away.

Her daughter started to cry as her mother was placed on a gurney.

Congressional leader backs protesters'call for justice for George Floyd

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Rep. Judy Chu issues a statement on the George Floyd demonstrations.

By Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA
Chair, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) 

The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community stands with our brothers and sisters in the Black community in mourning the death of George Floyd and in demanding justice and accountability for his murder. 

Justice must mean investigating and punishing every officer who played a role in Mr. Floyd’s completely avoidable death – including those who watched it happen without even attempting to intercede. But justice must also mean real, lasting change. Because the sad truth is George Floyd is not the first Black person to be killed because of the color of his skin. Freddie Gray, Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, and countless others before them died similarly unjustifiable deaths at the hands of police. But still nothing has changed. And so true justice means ending a broken law enforcement and justice system where Black and Brown lives are disproportionately targeted and treated as disposable.

For centuries, racial inequality in America has hurt Black and Brown communities. African Americans have been told where to live, work, and play. They’ve been surveilled, intimidated, and lynched. They’ve had the police called on them for watching birds in the park, and have been killed for wearing a hoodie, going for a jog, or simply sitting in the comforts of their own home. And in almost every case, their skin color was the only evidence needed to justify lethal use of force and letting the guilty go free.

But for centuries, these obvious injustices have gone unaddressed. Pleas for justice have been unanswered, or worse, dismissed. Even those who peacefully took a knee before sporting events were called un-American as a way of dismissing any attempt to start a national conversation on the impact of centuries of systemic racism. But people will not be ignored forever. 

Martin Luther King Jr. said "a riot is the language of the unheard." And that is what we are seeing now as unheard and anguished Americans of all backgrounds fill the streets to demand justice. 

I support every American demanding justice and making their voice heard at this time. But violence is not the cure for violence, and I urge all protestors to avoid looting or the destruction of property. When righteous causes are usurped by looters and those seeking to inflict violence, it distracts from our purpose and does nothing to honor the memory of George Floyd.

Although our experiences are different, the AAPI community is painfully familiar with our own decades of oppression and inequality. From the Chinese Exclusion Act – which denied equality to people like my grandfather – to the shameful imprisonment of innocent Japanese Americans during WW II, AAPIs know the sting of racial prejudice as well. And that is why it is so important that we stand united right now. 

As the spread of coronavirus and anti-Asian xenophobia led to an increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans, the support and solidarity from the Black and Hispanic communities told us we were not alone, and gave us hope that unity could defeat bigotry. 

Today, the AAPI community must do the same. That is why CAPAC stands with the Congressional Black Caucus in condemning police brutality and calling for justice for the countless Black men, women, and children who have been murdered for no other reason than the color of their skin. We must work together to address systemic inequality and to ensure that all Americans, regardless of their race, feel safe and have equal justice under law.