Hate crimes against Asian Americans on the rise

Brut America

There has been a wave of brutal attacks against Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic.   The founder of Rise, Amanda Nguyen, spoke with Brut about the need for urgent action.

Transcript

00:00The AAPI community has had to battle the perpetual foreigner stereotype, which is a radicalized

00:24form of nativist xenophobia and has consequences.

00:29The consequences are that lives have been lost.

00:59Just this past year, thousands of anti-Asian hate crimes have been reported by the Stop

01:18AAPI Hate Reporting Center.

01:21An 80-year-old grandmother was burned alive.

01:24Vitcho was murdered.

01:26We are fighting to be seen.

01:29We are systematically excluded from existing.

01:32From our history, to our grief, to our contributions, to literally the data collected by the federal

01:38government that informs the policies that govern us.

02:08During this pandemic, there has been a distressing rise in attacks against the AAPI community.

02:21In March 2020, a two-year-old and a six-year-old were attacked and stabbed in Texas.

02:26This suspect indicated that he stabbed the family because he thought the family was Chinese

02:31and infecting people with coronavirus.

02:35Leadership matters.

02:36And what our elected official says matters.

02:39Today, I'm directing federal agencies to combat resurgence of xenophobia.

03:09Particularly against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that we've seen skyrocket

03:14during this pandemic.

03:16This is unacceptable and it's un-American.

03:19I've asked the Department of Justice to strengthen its partnership with the Asian American and

03:24Pacific Islander community to prevent those hate crimes.

03:32Speak us into the consciousness of this country.

03:36The goal is to create empathy.

03:38We do that by humanizing us.

03:41Cover our stories.

03:42Cover not only our grief, but also our excellence.

03:45Teach our history in schools.

03:47We need more public attention to address the roots of racism.

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Transcript

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