Less than a year from being elected, United State’s President Joe Biden signed into law a bill designed to stop Asian-American hate. The sudden onslaught came after the COVID 19 pandemic with most offenders blaming the Asian community for the global health scare.
According to Biden, Asian Americans
have been used as a “scapegoat” amidst the anti-Chinese sentiment rolling
through the nation. He recognized the fear that many Asian Americans face
throughout the year as attacks became more frequent from Americans who seem to
be growing bolder by the day.
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| "Joe Biden" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 |
The new law which was passed through consistent Congress support, aims to improve the reporting process for crimes that are targeted towards Asian Americans. The goal is to smoothen the response of the authorities and to create a more reliable procedure to address the problems of the victims.
The law was timely passed as attack on
Asian Americans have rapidly progressed over the past year. With ex-President
Trump calling the Coronavirus as the “China virus”, many offenders saw this as
a justification to act against America-based Asians. According to activist
group Stop AAPI Hate, around 6,603 incidents of attacks against Asian Americans
were reported starting March 2020 alone. While most of these were verbal
insults, there have been physical assaults that resulted to serious injuries
requiring hospital stay. In an earlier report, the activist group stated that
physical assaults actually made up around 11.1 percent of the total attacks.
Beyond China
Asian women in particular, seem to be
getting more hate. According to a woman from NYC, a man slapped her hands and
actually threatened to throw his lighter at her. Some report being called slurs
and told to “leave NYC” with very little provocation. Some attacks were
directed at elder Asian Americans, some gaining worldwide attention due to the
violence of the attack.
The incidents of attacks against Asian
Americans experienced a sudden surge sometime in 2021 as the victims started to
have more courage in reporting these encounters. The outrage quickly gained
momentum as an immigrant Thai man was shoved to the ground and subsequently
died. In a single night, eight people died when a shooting spree occurred in an
Asian spa while a Chinese woman was set on fire. In New York City – one of the
most diverse areas in America – Filipino-American man’s face was brutally
slashed with a box cutter.
"I mean this from the bottom of my heart: hate can be given no safe harbor in America. Silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit," concludes Biden during his speech.
