Nearly a year after dying stabbed inside a Midland, Texas center, Sam’s Club, Bawi Cung and his two children have visible scars.
They are the ones that are not seen but are harder to overcome. Cung can’t walk around any store without constantly looking in all directions. Her 6-year-old son, who now can’t move an eyebrow, is afraid to sleep alone.
One Saturday evening in March, when panic purchases of COVID-19 took over the nation, Cung was looking for rice at a cheaper price. The family was in the meat section of Sam’s Club when suddenly Cung felt a punch to the back of his head. A man he did not know cut his face with a knife. The assailant left but soon stabbed the boys again. He injured the 3-year-old boy in the back and cut the 6-year-old boy from the right eye to a couple of inches beyond the right ear.
The terrible encounter brought home the dangerous climate that Asian Americans have had since the coronavirus entered the United States, with harassment and aggression of racial motivation from coast to coast.
Now, just over a year and thousands of incidents later, some of the first victims find that moving forward has been difficult or, at best, bittersweet. A recent wave of attacks on Asian American seniors, including the death of an 84-year-old San Francisco man, has fueled concerns that hostilities have only worsened.
In Cung’s case, the man responsible for the attack believed the Myanmar man and his children were Chinese and that they were spreading the virus, according to the FBI.
Cung said he’s not sure what would have happened if a Sam’s Club employee, Zach Owen, hadn’t intervened.
“It simply came to our notice then. Maybe I could kill my whole family. I don’t know, “Cung said.” God protected my family, God sent Zach to protect my family right there at the right time. “
Owen, who was stabbed in the leg and deeply cut in the right palm, and a Border Patrol officer off duty, arrested the suspect, 19-year-old José Gómez.
Verbal attacks have also left a lasting imprint.
In April, a confrontation in a park in Richmond, California, left an irrevocable impact not only on Kelly Yang, 36, but on her children. She was forced to discuss anti-Asian racism with her 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, a talk she didn’t think would last a few more years. An elderly white couple, annoyed by their untied dog, was named Yang, who is Chinese American, “Oriental,” and said the words many Asian Americans fear: “Come back where you came from.”
Their children thought the couple wanted them back home. Broken, Yang finally explained that they meant “let’s go back to Asia.”
“It means we’re not welcome here.”
Her son cried.
Yang believes the couple was encouraged by President Donald Trump’s use of racial terms such as “Chinese virus.” He applauded President Joe Biden’s recent executive order condemning anti-Asian xenophobia as a good start. But Yang fears many non-Asians have already abandoned the issue as if it had ceased when the Trump presidency did.
“I don’t know what can be done,” said Yang, who writes novels for young adults and plans to weave his experience into his next book. “But I know how to talk about it, recognize it, remember, that’s what we do with wars. We have to remember what happened.”
Douglas Kim, 42, a chef and owner of the Jeju Noodle Bar in New York City, is confident that racism fueled by COVID-19 was behind the vandalism of his Michelin-starred Korean restaurant. Someone used a Sharpie to scatter in the winter lobby “Stop eating dogs,” referring to a stereotype about Asian cuisines. Ultimately, Kim decided not to report it.
“It bothered me at the time, but I have more important things to worry about,” Kim said. “Keeping a business is more important.”
He shared a picture of the graffiti on Instagram to draw attention to hate crimes. There was great supportive support, but he believes much of it has faded.
Still, Kim expects fewer people to stereotype Asian Americans as non-US foreigners
“I think it’s about education,” Kim said. “If you raise your children like this, they will learn like this. I think things are changing, but it’s not 100% yet. That’s why obviously someone wrote this on our doorstep. ”
Since mid-March 2020, more than 3,000 incidents have been reported at Stop AAPI Hate, an information center for residents of the Asian-American Pacific Islands based in California and its partner advocacy groups. definition of a hate crime. However, police in several major cities experienced a sharp increase in hate crimes targeting Asia between 2019 and 2020, according to data collected by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, California State University, San Bernardino. New York City went from three incidents to 27, Los Angeles from seven to 15 and Denver had three incidents in 2020, the first to be reported in six years.
An eruption of crime victims of former Asian Americans in the past two months has renewed the cry to attract more attention from politicians and the media. On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation allocating $ 1.4 million to Stop AAPI Hate and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Funding will go to community resources and follow-up to anti-Asian hate incidents.
Local officials and citizens have also noticed. Initiatives such as increasing police presence, volunteer patrols and special crime hotlines are coming to fruition. Renowned brands such as Golden State Warriors and Apple, based in the Bay Area, have promised to give to the cause.
Cynthia Choi of Stop AAPI Hate wants news cycles to focus not only on the latest crimes, but on the solutions being discussed. Police and prosecution are not necessarily the answers, he said. COVID-19 vitriol has its roots in more than a century of anti-Chinese and anti-immigrant attitudes. She and other advocates think that greater investment in educational and community resources could help achieve these root causes. Anti-Asian xenophobia should be part of the ongoing talks on racial calculus, Choi added.
“Our work to address anti-Asian racism is inextricably linked to the fight against anti-black racism,” Choi said. “This will take us all, it will take public education efforts, it will take racial solidarity efforts that really bring our communities together.”
Before emigrating to the United States six years ago, Cung, the survivor of the Texas hate crime, had never encountered racism. Now, it’s hard for him to hear stories about Asian American violence. Initially after the attack, Cung fought as Gomez tried to kill him simply for his looks. Now, pray for your attacker.
As for what should happen to Gomez, who remains jailed for three counts of attempted capital murder, Cung said it depends on the courts.
“I can forgive him, but we can’t accept racism or this kind of terrorist attack,” said Cung, who received more than $ 20,000 in online donations.
One thing to look forward to is life as a newly naturalized American citizen in a country where “people are respected”. Cung remains baffled because he may not fit into some people’s idea of what the United States is like.
“Maybe they personally have racism,” Cung said. “I do not care. I’m proud to be Asian and Asian American. “
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Tang reported on Phoenix and is a member of The Associated Press ’Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP