Our Statement Against Anti-Asian Hate
[Why are you wearing a mask that says “Not A Virus”]
[ROBIN GWAK, 19]
[A Freshman at Rutgers University]
“Unfortunately I think that one of the things that, you know, racism has been doing to Asians is just reducing human beings to a single virus, which we’re not so I wanted to, you know, make it visual make it clear that I am, you know, an individual with feelings and I’m proud of my heritage and my culture and I don’t want us to be ridiculed like that anymore.”
Asian Americans are Americans in the same way we all are, bringing a unique and lively diversity to our community. It is the diversity of our people that really makes America great, it is the fundamental creed we all share, the driving force behind a free nation, and makes us stand head and shoulders above all other nations. I’ve asked my friend, colleague, and associate Eunmi Hwang to share her thoughts as an Asian American professional.
America as a nation should commit itself to supporting it’s Asian communities, the Asian American should take on the responsibility of speaking up, reporting incidents to the authorities, and making an acknowledgment to the community that someone did something because of bias. The center for the study of hate and extremism at California state university released findings in early March. They showed hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked 149% between 2019 and 2020 even though hate crimes overall declined. A separate group stopped AAPI hate, AAPI stands for Asian American and pacific islander, reported that there were nearly 3,800 hateful incidents during the first year of the pandemic. These numbers are likely a small fraction of actual incidents, including crimes, because Asian Americans are less likely to seek help for many reasons including language barrier and cultural differences. These numbers tell us clearly and unfortunately that there is an increasing trend in anti-Asian hate when we all have suffered from the pandemic when we all have struggled with covid-19 when we all have ever needed each other’s care and support to get through this hard time please do your part. we Asian Americans must become representatives at the forefront of these issues to bring awareness and encourage justice for such active hate, we should stand up together.
Our history has shined when we stand together.
We should treat all people fairly equally and respectfully.
So let us all work to stop the hate now. Thank you.