CLEVELAND — More than 200 Asian-Americans and allies gathered online to discuss racism against Asians and recognize the eight people – including six Asian women – killed this week in a mass shooting at three Atlanta spas that many believe was racially motivated.
Asian American leaders say the discrimination they have experienced during the past year has been fueled in part by rhetoric and false claims about the coronavirus.
But the roots of discrimination go much deeper.
“Whenever the country goes through a period of stress and looking for scapegoat, that foreignness turns into a reason to be violent against the other and this has happened through history every couple of decades,” said Brant T. Lee, a law professor and assistant dean of diversity & social justice initiatives at the University of Akron.
He cited among other things Asians being run out of mining towns in the West, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Japanese internment camps during World War II.
During the event. A number of Asian women spoke about discrimination they have experienced in the past.
“Recently, my aunt came up to me and told me to not go out much because she was scared I was going to get attacked, and this really hit me hard because I realized there is an ongoing pandemic right now – but she is telling me not go out – not because of the pandemic – but because she is afraid I was going to get attacked," Mai Lor said.
Madu Sharma said she believes President Trump incited others to discriminate, noting his 2019 taunts of four minority congresswomen – one whom was an immigrant -- to go back home.
“Two weeks after he said this on the news, a woman spit at me as she drove her bike past me,” Sharma said. “I didn’t speak because I thought that was just a coincidence because she decided spit as riding past. But then she came back and she spit at me again and it hit me and she told me to go home.”
You can watch the online vigil below:
On Saturday, local leaders are organizing a “cash mob” for Cleveland’s LJ Shanghai restaurant and its owner, who has been the target of recent discrimination. People are encouraged to order takeout from the restaurant between Noon and 6 p.m. to show their support. The restaurant is located at 3142 Superior Ave. The number is 216-400-6936.