Myanmar protesters vow more rallies after military raids on opposition figures

AFP Issued on: 07/03/2021 - 

THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE

Protesters facing security forces shelter behind shields during a demonstration against the military coup next to Shwezigon Pagoda in Nyaung-U near the UNESCO world heritage site Bagan on March 7, 2021. AFP - STR

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Myanmar anti-coup demonstrators have vowed big turnouts Sunday as the junta regime intensifies its crackdown, following overnight raids in parts of Yangon which targeted officials from Aung San Suu Kyi's political party.

The country has been in chaos since the February 1 coup, which ousted civilian leader Suu Kyi from power and triggered a mass uprising opposing the military junta regime.

Wednesday was the deadliest day so far, with the United Nations saying at least 38 people were gunned down as security forces fired into crowds, shooting some protesters in the head.

The UN rights office also said it has verified at least 54 deaths since the coup -- though the actual number could be far higher -- and more than 1,700 people have been detained.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party confirmed some officials were arrested in overnight raids.

"It's true that in some townships NLD officials were arrested. But we do not know exactly how many persons were taken or arrested," party official Soe Win told AFP.

NLD MP Sithu Maung posted on Facebook that security forces last night were searching the party's information officer U Maung Maung at his house but couldn't find him.

"U Maung Maung's brother was beaten by police and soldiers and his body was held in an upside-down position while he was tortured because there was no one to arrest," the MP said.

State-run media on Sunday warned lawmakers involved in a group -- called the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw which is claiming to be the legitimately elected government of Myanmar -- that they are committing "high treason" and could be sentenced to death or 22 years jail.

The junta has declared group members persona non-grata and says those who communicate with them could face seven years jail.

'Willing to die'

Yangon-based activist Maung Saungkha flagged there were coordinated protests across multiple cities and regional areas on Sunday as part of a two-day general strike.

"We are willing to die for our country," he told AFP.

"This current situation is worse (than the past regime). So do we stay under this condition or do we fight? This time we must fight to win. We believe that fighting together with the young generation will get us the victory."

On Saturday, state-run media announced that if civil servants continued to boycott work, "they will be fired" with immediate effect from March 8. The junta is pushing for banks to reopen Monday.

But demonstrators insist they will continue to defy authorities over the next two days.

Police and soldiers Sunday in the Yangon district of San Chaung were removing makeshifts barricades and using sound bombs and tear gas to disperse protesters.

In Yangon's North Okkalapa township, protesting took on a musical flavour with guitarists and drummers and vocalists wearing Suu Kyi Tshirts singing revolutionary songs at an impromptu concert.

"It's important, brothers and sisters, let us unite in unity," the crowd sang.

While a crowd numbering in the thousands hit the streets in Mandalay -- Myanmar's second biggest city -- chanting: "don't serve the military, get out, get out."

THE PEOPLE UNITED SHALL NEVER BE DEFEATED

Many sat on roads under umbrellas with signs saying "free our elected leaders".

That city lost another life Saturday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which reported a 21-year-old Ko Naing Min Ko died after being shot in the leg and beaten by security forces the previous day.

The monitoring group also said people connected to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party were responsible for two deaths on Saturday morning in the Magway region - a 17-year-old youth and an NLD party official.

Local reporter Naw Betty Han at Frontier Myanmar Magazine tweeted images of police burning roadblocks

Meanwhile, scores of Myanmar citizens are at the border with India, waiting to join about 50 others who have already crossed the frontier to flee the country's coup turmoil, Indian officials said Saturday.

Myanmar authorities have written to their Indian counterparts requesting eight police who fled this week be sent home.

A total of 48 Myanmar nationals have entered India's northeastern state of Mizoram, a senior officer in the Assam Rifles paramilitary force told AFP.

"At least 85 civilians from Myanmar have been waiting at the international border to enter India," the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Malcolm X's childhood home gets historic designation


Li Cohen
Sat, March 6, 2021, 

The "last known surviving boyhood home" of Malcolm X has officially been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The house, located in the Roxbury section of Boston, is where Malcolm spent his teenage years living with his half sister, fellow civil rights icon Ella Little-Collins, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a D.C.-based nonprofit organization.

With the new designation, the house will be considered in all federal planning, may qualify for federal grants and will be eligible for tax provisions to rehabilitate the building.

In this March 29, 2016, photo, signs call attention to the house where Malcolm X spent part of his childhood in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. / Credit: Bill Sikes/AP

Malcolm and his sister moved into the house in 1941 when Little-Collins gained guardianship of Malcolm, who rose to be a prominent Black leader who was a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and '60s. He was known for encouraging people to fight against racism with whatever means were necessary.


After Malcolm was shot and killed in 1965, Little-Collins never returned to the house, according to the National Trust, although she maintained ownership of it until her death in 1996. Her son, Rodnell Collins, has since owned the historic building.

Nobody has lived in the two-and-a-half-story house, located at 72 Dale Street, for more than 30 years, according to the National Trust, and Collins is working on redeveloping the building so that it can be used as living space for graduate students who are studying African American history, social justice or civil rights.

"Transforming the historic residence where Malcolm X spent his formative years into graduate student housing would provide an innovative model for sites across the country," the National Trust says on its website. "The rehabilitation would not only restore an important part of American history, but transform an underutilized structure into an active and vibrant part of the surrounding community."

The house was added to the National Register on February 12 for its local and national significance, according to the National Park Service.


Along with its connection to Malcolm X and Little-Collins, the National Register for Historic Places said the property is "significant" for "its demonstrated potential to provide information about 18th-century farm practices within the landscape context for Roxbury and for its later 19th-century development as a streetcar suburb of Boston."

In 2016, the city of Boston conducted an archaeological dig at the site of the home and found kitchenware, ceramics and other items that dated back to the 1700s. They also uncovered jewelry and toys from the 1970s.

IDAHO

Parents encourage kids to burn masks on steps of state capitol

MY FAVORITE IDAHO

EVANGELICAL WHITE CHRISTIANS LOVE A GOOD BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES; ROCK N ROLL ALBUMS, BOOKS, ART, ETC.

Gustaf Kilander
Sat, March 6, 2021, 

Young attendees toss surgical masks into a fire during a mask burning event at the Idaho Statehouse on March 6, 2021 in Boise, Idaho. (Getty Images)

In a shocking video, parents can be seen encouraging their children to burn face masks in defiance of Covid-19 safety precautions on the steps of the Idaho Capitol building in Boise.

Children can be heard saying "Destroy them!" as they toss the masks into a burning barrel. A parent cautions the kids in the video not to throw in too many masks at once, telling them to "let them burn".

The video was posted to Twitter by Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Sergio Olmos, who also interviewed one of the organisers behind the event, who said it was a rally and not a protest.

Darr Moon, husband of Republican Idaho state representative Dorothy Moon, told Mr Olmos: "We're standing here today to reign back government, to reestablish our Republican form of government, a government that has balance between the branches."

He added: "We need certain boundaries and that's not what we have today. Our governor is appropriating money and pretty much running the show here in Idaho."


Organisers said that similar "burn the mask" demonstrations were being held in 20 other Idaho cities.


Another organizer lead the crowd of around 150 people in pledging allegiance to the flag.


As police told protestors to put out the fire, they simply told the officers to "get out of here" and to leave organisers "alone".


According to data from CNN, Idaho has suffered worse from the pandemic compared to some of its neighbouring states. 105 out of every 100,000 people have died in the state compared to 54 in Oregon and 66 in Washington state.

The state recorded its first case of Covid-19 on 13 March 2020, according to KTVB. The state's Republican governor Brad Little slammed the efforts of his own party to roll back his Covid-19 emergency declaration in late January, CNN reported.

Read more: State capitols reassess safety after violence at US Capitol

The Republicans control both the state house and state senate in Idaho.

Mr Little said: "I believe in my heart that what the Idaho Legislature is doing is harmful to our people and wrong for Idaho," adding, "I urge my partners in the Legislature to stop the political gains and do what is right for the people of Idaho".

Mr Little said the declaration was "critical" for the state to receive federal assistance.

The state senate later backed off the idea to end the emergency declaration, according to Boise State Public Radio.

Speaking to KTVB and looking back on his actions during the last year, Mr Litte said: "There were some federal programs that were directed to us that had we known earlier we could have prepared better."

He added: "The one thing I know for sure, the no-action alternative would have been a disaster. Nobody did that. You had to act given the magnitude of the pandemic."

Asked if he would open up the state fully like Texas and Mississippi, Mr Little said: "Texas and Mississippi are opening up to like where we are now. They're taking off their mask mandate. We don't have a mandate. They're opening up businesses that we have open. The only real issue in Idaho is gathering size, and as we check around with the hospitals to make sure they're okay, that will be the next thing."

Blasting President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill that passed the Senate on Saturday, Mr Little argued the bill would penalise states like Idaho which has remained largely open during the pandemic.

He said: "A quarter of a billion dollars of Idahoans' federal taxes would subsidize states that have kept people out of work! States such as California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and others would get more than their fair share under Biden's plan."

Asians were thought to be the 'model minority.' Then came 'receipt culture.'




Asians were thought to be the 'model minority.' Then came 'receipt culture.'

Claire Wangin read

In Sacramento, California, last Friday, a high school Spanish teacher made a slant-eyed gesture during a Zoom class. “If their eyes went up, they’re Chinese. If they’re down, they’re Japanese,” she said in a video recorded by a student. “If they’re just straight, you don’t know.”

Four months earlier, a U.S. marine threatened to shoot Chinese people in a viral video tweet. Addressing the group with a slur, he said, “China is going to pay for what they have done to this country and the world."

In another video recorded last July, a tech CEO taunted an Asian American family at an upscale Northern California restaurant, calling them an “Asian piece of s---.” Uproar over the clip, which has been viewed more than 1 million times on Instagram, forced the man to resign.


Fueled by former President Donald Trump’s anti-China rhetoric, the Covid-19 pandemic has unleashed an onslaught of hate incidents against Asian American and Pacific Islanders. In 2020, the group Stop AAPI Hate received more than 2,800 self-reports of coronavirus discrimination nationwide, from verbal harassment to physical assault.

Yet news outlets and federal agencies have been slow to recognize the threat and enact policy changes. For much of the past year, the Justice Department resisted calls from Democratic lawmakers and activists to proactively combat the public targeting of Asians. In the days before Lunar New Year, when surveillance cameras captured a spate of violent, unprovoked attacks against Asian seniors, top-rated cable networks spent little to no airtime covering the issue, according to the progressive research center Media Matters.

“Social media is an equalizing force not previously available to marginalized communities.”

Amid institutional indifference, social media and other digital tools have allowed Asian Americans to prove the various forms of discrimination they’ve long experienced, organize mutual aid groups and pressure authorities to respond.

Experts say "receipt culture," or showing evidence of a wrongdoing typically on social media, has helped change the way people see challenges for Asian Americans, long thought of as the "model minority."

“Social media is an equalizing force not previously available to marginalized communities,” Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director at the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, told NBC Asian America.

On Feb. 5, after failing to find much media coverage about four separate attacks on elderly Asians, the activist Amanda Nguyen uploaded a 30-second Instagram video. In it, she summarized each incident and called on newsrooms to report on the crisis.

“I decided, look, if the mainstream media wasn’t going to talk about this, then I’m going to turn to social media and talk about it,” Nguyen, a co-founder of Rise, a group that helps people write laws, said.

Overnight, she said, the clip racked up more than 3 million views, with more than 11 million reaction posts on TikTok.

The ensuing outrage has helped to spur legislative action.

In late February, California lawmakers introduced a bill that would allocate $1.4 million in funding to UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and Stop AAPI Hate. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYPD’s Asian Hate Crimes Task Force would make a more concerted effort to monitor attacks in the subway.

Organizers today are increasingly leveraging new technologies to build scalable social and racial justice movements, Kulkarni said. She noted the precedent set by Black Lives Matter protesters, who used smartphone cameras to document police killings of unarmed Black people. Videos of frail Asian seniors being slammed to the ground, she said, have elicited a similarly visceral reaction from viewers, allowing them to instinctively grasp the gravity of the situation.

The footage, she continued, also helped shatter the notion that Asian Americans don’t experience violent crime like other communities of color because they’re white-adjacent.

“The enormous force of the model minority myth — that you’re all doing well, that your issues are not the same as others who are really suffering — is what we’re fighting against,” Kulkarni said.

Beyond social networks, technology has also made it easier for people to report verbal and physical abuse, helping grassroots groups gather accurate data on pandemic-related discrimination.

“Asians have had a harder time proving racism in a large part because, in general, people still don’t know the history and struggles of Asian Americans.”

Stop AAPI Hate, for instance, allows people to document bias incidents on an online form, which can be accessed at any time on a phone or laptop. Compared to a hotline, the method is more cost-effective and less intimidating for those who may not feel comfortable discussing traumatic experiences with other people.

Some experts, however, say it’s just as important to reckon with the limits of digital platforms, which are often more adept at eliciting emotional reactions than facilitating difficult conversations about healing.

“Asians have had a harder time proving racism in a large part because, in general, people still don’t know the history and struggles of Asian Americans,” said Stewart Kwoh, president emeritus of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, a civil rights organization that has been tracking anti-Asian hate incidents since the 1990s. “That’s the overwhelming problem we have to confront as a society.”

While social media has been “a game changer in the sense of establishing the extent of the problem,” he said, it’s been less effective at providing answers.

In recent weeks, some experts have criticized celebrities who called on their followers to help identify and arrest culprits of anti-Asian attacks, arguing that the approach could encourage vigilantism and increase policing in communities of color. Local leaders have also raised concerns about a large contingent of social media users who labeled many high-profile assaults as "hate crimes," despite having no evidence that they were racially motivated.

Because anti-Asian racism comes in many forms, Kwoh said, efforts to fight it cannot rely on law enforcement alone. Physical assaults, in fact, constitute a small portion of bias incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate. Seven of 10 cases involve verbal harassment like name-calling. A multipronged strategy to keep Asian Americans safe, he continued, has to include stronger civil rights enforcement and funding for agencies like the Department of Housing and the Human Relations Commission.

But such nuances, Kwoh said, are not easily captured on social media, and bias can be difficult to prove.

To more accurately assess the causes and growth of anti-Asian incidents, Nguyen said, “we need more in-depth data on the Asian community as a whole with more mainstream media attention on why these problems are occurring.”

There also has to be a culture shift, she said, that begins with implementing more education initiatives.

On TikTok, Asian American teenagers have heeded this call, posting punchy explainers about the long history of anti-Asian xenophobia and the way in which seemingly innocuous microaggressions can easily lead to violence.

But the effort, Nguyen said, has to move beyond social media. Integrating Asian American studies into public school curricula is crucial, she said, because “it’s hard for people to empathize with our pain if they don’t know our stories.”

Anti-Asian violence has surged since 

Covid-19. But it didn't start there



Maura Hohman
Sat, March 6, 2021,


Chinatowns across the country are struggling because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has impacted these communities far beyond mask requirements and limited restaurant capacity. An apparent rise in anti-Asian bigotry over the past year has also led to fewer customers for Asian-run businesses and a surge in violence, especially against older people.

In the San Francisco area, home to the nation's largest and oldest Chinatown, there have been at least 18 attacks against Asians this month alone, one of which killed an 84-year-old Thai immigrant, Vicha Ratanapakdee. In 2020, New York City police recorded 28 hate crimes against Asian Americans, up from three in 2019.

Last spring, activists started a national system for tracking discrimination and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific islanders, called Stop AAPI Hate. It received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents between March and December 2020. According to NBC News, Stop AAPI Hate said 69 occurrences included racist language coupled with a physical incident. The nonprofit doesn't report those to police.


NBC News investigative correspondent Vicky Nguyen, who's reported extensively on anti-Asian sentiment, said via email that she sees these surges as "really disheartening."

"I knew anti-Asian sentiment existed long before the pandemic, but until now, I have never felt this level of worry for my parents out in public," she said. "It has instilled a sense of sadness that’s new for me."

Throughout history, "this yellow peril fear (has been) resurrected during times of war, pandemic and economic downturn," explained Russell Jeung, a professor at San Francisco State University and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate. "The same fears and stereotypes ... (are) always sort of lurking underneath."
The first wave of immigration & the People v. Hall

With the first wave of East Asian immigration to the United States in the 1850s, "there was discrimination and violence ... right away," Chris Kwok, a board member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, told "TODAY." "Since the Chinese were here first in large numbers, that set the framework for the political and social treatments of almost all other Asian immigrants."

Many Chinese people who emigrated to the Western U.S. during the gold rush were "driven out of town" out of fear they were driving down wages, he added. "They didn't want to accept them as American."

During this period, some 300 Chinese settlements were displaced, Jeung said. In 1906, a fishing village of 200 people outside Monterey, California, where his family lived at the time, was burned down, he said.

Kwok added that there were "many, many recorded lynchings and killings, but obviously not on the same scale as Native Americans and African Americans."

In the 1871 Chinese massacre, rioters killed 10 percent of the Chinese population in Los Angeles, about 18 people, according to the L.A. Public Library. Eight people were convicted of manslaughter, but the convictions were overturned and no one was retried. In 1885, white mobs in Rock Springs, Wyoming, murdered 28 Chinese coal miners, wounded 15 more and burnt down the city's Chinatown, according to the state's historical society.

An 1854 California Supreme Court case called the People v. Hall also set a dangerous precedent by ruling that an Asian person couldn't testify against a white person in a criminal proceeding.

"That understanding that there would be no legal repercussions for violence against Chinese people just changed ... the way that white people in America interacted with Chinese," Beth Lew-Williams, history professor at Princeton University and author of "The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America," said. "They were seen as open to attack."
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

In the spring of 1882, Congress passed and President Chester A. Arthur signed the first significant law limiting immigration into the United States, according to OurDocuments.gov. It legalized a 10-year ban on Chinese labor immigration, which continued in some form until 1943.

"It was the Chinese, who came in their numbers, that really pushed America to restrictive immigration laws for the very first time in history," Kwok said.

Perceptions in the 19th century that Chinese immigrants were the source of diseases like smallpox, leprosy and malaria, played a role in the act's passage, Jeung said, as did fears they were taking away jobs from white workers. At the time, many Chinese were out of work after helping in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad, completing the "most dangerous jobs on the toughest part of the route" and earning roughly one-third less than white workers, Kwok said.

Lew-Williams added that the Chinese Exclusion Act "tamped down on the number of Asian immigrants, and it deprived them of a place in American memory." Another reason the early violence against Asians isn't often discussed, she said, is that it was "effective. The violence was meant to push people out of communities, and in many communities, they succeeded."
San Francisco's bubonic plague, 1900

In March 1900, the discovery of a body of Chinese person suspected of having died from the plague led the health department to quarantine all of San Francisco's Chinatown, Jeung said.

"They allowed white people to leave, but they kept Chinese segregated there to get the disease," he explained. "The actual neighborhood was roped off some, barbed wire put up, and that's their approach to dealing with disease." He added that thousands were left homeless in Santa Ana, California, and Honolulu after residents burned down areas where infected people lived.

Later on, he said, "arbitrary health conditions" were used to justify detaining Asian immigrants at San Francisco's Angel Island.

Kwok sees current anti-Asian sentiment as "very similar" to this historical period. "The association with disease — they're dirty, they're contaminating our country — is consistent with the idea of the aliens that cannot become a part of America," he said.
World War II & Japanese internment camps

In the wake of the Pearl Harbor bombing, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1942 that led to internment camps for Japanese people, regardless of citizenship, according to the National WWII Museum.

Almost all Japanese Americans — more than 120,000, per USCourts.gov — had to leave their homes and live in camps for the rest of the war. Although it was a violation of constitutional rights, it was considered an issue of public safety because of concerns Japanese Americans would help launch military attacks.

As Jeung described it, "Japanese Americans were seen as disloyal traders and incarcerated."

They were given just days before having to report to temporary "assembly centers," according to the museum. In one instance, families had to stay in horse stalls with dirt floors at a racetrack. The more permanent facilities resembled "Army-style barracks," with guard towers and barbed wire. They didn't protect against severe heat or cold, and there was little privacy. Still, Japanese Americans found ways to create a sense of community, establishing schools, markets and newspapers.

In 1948, Congress paid $38 million in reparations and 40 years later gave an additional $20,000 to anyone still living who'd been forced into the camps.
The civil rights movement

While the "explicitly racist" immigration laws fell in the 1940s, Kwok said, there still were restrictions on how many Asians could emigrate to the U.S. each year leading up to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. A 1917 act had established the Asiatic barred zone, which banned people from the Middle East to Southeast Asia from entering the U.S., Jeung said.

But the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act removed national-origin limitations, which had prioritized European immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Kwok said this change was a direct result of the civil rights movement and "the African-American freedom struggle."

"It was a response to (the idea that) maybe all the things that we did to keep America white, we need to get rid of those things," he explained. In fact, college students coined the term "Asian American" in the 1960s, inspired by the Black Power movement, Kwok said.

Also in the '60s, in response to poor pay and working conditions, Filipino American grape farmers started to strike, according to labor union United Farm Workers. In 1970, the strike, eventually led by Cesar Chavez, established union contracts, better pay and working conditions.

Although mistreatment of Filipino workers might not be considered explicit violence, “being exploited as workers has also been part of the rationale of (exploiting) Asian and brown bodies,” Jeung said. “They were seen as cheap labor, outsiders taking away white workers' jobs."
Murder of Vincent Chin & L.A. Riots

In the 1980s, the U.S. hit a recession, and the country's automotive industry was being outcompeted by the Japanese.

On June 19, 1982, two white auto workers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, attacked 27-year-old Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American, with a baseball bat in the Detroit area. NBC News reported that witnesses said Ebens allegedly told Chin, "It's because of you little m—f—s that we're out of work." Chin — who'd been mistaken as Japanese by his assailants, Jeung said — died four days later. Ebens and Nitz were convicted of manslaughter but never did any jail time.

"It's another example of scapegoating," Lew-Williams said. "Anti-Japanese sentiment was rampant ... in the auto industry at the time."

Ten years later, in 1992, Los Angeles erupted in riots following the videotaped beating of Black man Rodney King by four police officers, who were later acquitted. At the time, tensions had been building between the Korean and Black communities in the wake of fatal shootings of Black customers by Korean shopkeepers the previous year and two shooting deaths of recent immigrants by a robber whom police identified as Black, NBC News reported. Some 2,200 Korean-owned businesses were damaged in the riots, according to research from Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American studies at the University of California, Riverside.

“As Asian Americans move into a neighborhood, they may face hostility for being different,” Jeung said. “The lack of protection from the police force is another example of ... state-sponsored violence. (The merchants) were calling for it when (police) protected other parts of L.A.”
Post-9/11 to present

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror strikes, the number of attacks against people perceived as Muslim rose "exponentially," according to Harvard University's Pluralism Project. An analysis from Pew Research Center based on FBI data found there were 93 anti-Muslim assaults in 2001 compared to 12 in 2000. The same report also found another spike in anti-Muslim violence in 2016.

“Asian Americans are seen as Muslim terrorists, just by their appearance,” Jeung explained.

He also remarked that since 2018, “Southeast Asians are being deported en masse” due to laws enacted in 1996 allowing immigrants to be deported for crimes, even though no such laws were in place when the crime was committed. “Let’s say they commit a crime, they pay their punishment,” Jeung explained. “But then they get double jeopardy because they come out of prison, they get paroled, but then they get immediately deported.”

South Asians and Muslims today are in many ways leading today's movement against hate directed at Asian Americans, an example of "pan-ethnic solidarity," Jeung said. Current activists are also "learning from the wisdom of our elders who strategized and organized" after Vincent Chin's murder, he continued.

"Part of the progress is that we're standing on the shoulders of other previous activists, who have a lot of insight about how government operates, how racism manifests itself, how we need to be prepared and change the narrative," Jeung added.

Nguyen stressed the importance of people educating themselves about the contributions of Asian American communities as a means to help.

"This history is not taught in public schools the way it could be," she said. "When you don’t know people, it’s easier to hate them. ... Many more things unite us than divide us when we take the time to understand each other."

Asian Americans now see why we need to fight back against racism, not ignore it



Xiao Wang
Fri, March 5, 2021

My son entered the world just days before the lockdowns and quarantines spurred by the coronavirus pandemic started to sweep across the United States; this week, he turns 1.

But as the virus spread, so too did violence against Asian Americans, spurred in part by then-President Donald Trump’s repeated use of the term “Chinese virus” and the even more offensive (and deeply scientifically inaccurate) "Kung flu."

Advocacy groups estimate that anti-Asian violence surged, with nearly 3,000 incidents reported between March and December of 2020. For instance, last summer, an 89-year old Chinese immigrant grandmother in New York was slapped and set on fire; the victim chose to go unidentified out of fear and shame. In December, Filipino immigrant and U.S. Navy veteran Angelo Quinto was killed in his mother’s home by police who knelt on his neck for five minutes. The next month, Thai immigrant Vicha Ratanapakdee was slain while walking in his San Francisco neighborhood at 9:00 a.m.


In recent weeks, a series of viral videos showing racist attacks against elderly Asian Americans across the United States have stoked fears that violence against members of our community is once again on the rise. A 91-year-old Asian American man was pushed to the ground in Oakland, California, in early February; an Asian family's house in Southern California was repeatedly vandalized in February; an Asian man was beaten in an unprovoked attack on the New York City subway in March.

Although these recent news hits have shed light on violence against Asian Americans, anti-Asian American sentiment, particularly against Asian immigrants, goes back centuries.

The very first piece of major immigration legislation passed by the U.S. Congress was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which barred all people of Chinese descent from entering the country. But beyond those better known “yellow peril” days following the Gold Rush and those of World War II, when Japanese Americans were locked in internment camps, history is heavy with government-sanctioned racism against Asian immigrants: Asian children were segregated in "Oriental" schools in California in the 1880s; the 1892 Geary Act forced all Chinese living in America to obtain and carry government identification proving their legal status; laws passed in 13 states, starting in 1913, barred "aliens ineligible for citizenship" — which many Asians were — from owning and/or leasing land; and Chinese immigrants weren't eligible to naturalize until the 1943 Magnuson Act.

These overtly discriminatory policies of the past have morphed in recent years to prejudice by association accompanied by violence, including acts like the murder in 1982 of Vincent Chin by disgruntled autoworkers who blamed Japanese car imports for Detroit’s decline and the killings of turban-wearing Sikhs following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (even though Sikhs had nothing to do with the attacks).

The attacks on and even murders of Asian Americans blamed for spreading that so-called “Kung Flu” is simply the latest in a long line of both government-promulgated anti-Asian racism and violence against individual Asian Americans for world events that had little to do with them.

Asian Americans, though, have often collectively remained silent in the face of both, and that collective silence by both our ancestors and those of us living in the U.S. today — stemming from cultural roots in staying quiet and a willingness to ignore that which we felt we could not change — has enabled the implicit racism against Asians to go unchecked.

For my parents, and many other Asian immigrants like them, establishing a family and an identity in America trumped everything else. They dismissed being repeatedly overlooked for raises while waiting for a green card as an “inconvenience”; when their bosses passed them over for promotions, they chalked it up to their “lack of English ability,” despite excelling at all measurable metrics.

Later, for me, “fitting in” became an excuse for an accommodation of the same unacceptable patterns my parents faced. I laughed along when my peers made fun of the smelliness of my school lunches, at my squinty eyes in pictures, and at my smaller physical size. When teachers first struggled to pronounce my name and then gave up altogether, I let it pass. I had grown up in America, but when people complimented my English, I still thanked them.

I deeply cherish the values of diligence and perseverance my parents passed on to me. From an early age, I was taught to put my head down, work hard, and excel — getting good grades, high SAT scores, admittance into quality schools, impressive employment opportunities — and not worry about what others thought of me if that didn't affect my achievements. Unfortunately, by prioritizing outward success, Asian Americans like me ignored an equally important imperative: to stand up for ourselves, our history and our rights.

The real world violence engulfing our community today is proof that the time has come to change that dark inheritance.

For generations, Asian Americans have been enabled American society to ignore or dismiss anti-Asian racism. We’ve put up with all of the “Ching Chong” name-calling as long as it doesn’t affect us getting to college. We’ve put up with being ignored in television and the movies as long as it doesn’t affect us buying a house. We’ve put up with not having representation in government, since we vote at a lower rate than any other racial group.

This is the result: It took three weeks for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to apologize for making a racist joke about Asian accountants during the 2016 Oscars ceremony that was criticized as #OscarsSoWhite and with no major Asian nominees. Over 46 seasons and 500+ hosts of "Saturday Night Live," only six hosts have been Asian and only four cast members — Fred Armisen, Rob Schneider, Nasim Pedrad and Bowen Yang — have been of Asian descent. Asians make up 13 percent of the U.S. professional workforce but only 3 percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and are the least likely group to be promoted into management.

For too long we’ve been passive observers, reveling in how much better America is compared to where we or our ancestors have come from, instead of actively shaping how good America could be.

More than two months have passed since the death of Quinto, and there have been no major marches or protests demanding justice for him and his family; there are no rallies scheduled for all of the many other Asian American men and women who have been the victims of hate crimes in the last year. I cannot sit silently on the sidelines anymore and I hope my fellow Asian Americans will join me.

There are countless ways to speak up and help things start to change. You can begin challenging co-workers who perpetuate Asian stereotypes, or speak out at PTA meetings about how racism in the schoolyard is affecting your child. You can vote; you can even consider running for office. It’s the least our children deserve.

And, yes, I will make my son do his math homework and learn how to play piano, but I will also teach him how to be proud of who he is. He doesn’t need to be ashamed about the size of his head, his face flushing after a beer or his last name. I want him to grow up in an America that will treat him equally as a U.S. citizen, and not one where he will be asked “But where are you really from?”

But if they do, I want him to be sure of himself when he says, "The United States. Just like you."

 

Letters to the Editor: Don't take anti-Asian hate as a given. Fight back against it

Fri, March 5, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES 

People participate in a rally to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence at Los Angeles State Historic Park on Feb. 20. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Growing up, I remember white kids following me and chanting "ching chong" and "jap jap" while making slanty-eyed gestures. Well into my teens, I would walk into a restaurant with my family and we would be refused service. ("My low-level anxiety about being Asian in America has morphed into fear," March 3)

All those times, I burned with shame and humiliation. I wanted my folks to fight back, but while my dad silently steamed, my mom would say, "Shikata ga nai," meaning, "It can't be helped."

As an adult, I am subjected to inappropriate remarks that still wound. Reading about all the latest attacks on Asians has both saddened me and increased my anxiety. When will it happen to me? Will it be a physical or a verbal attack?

I don’t subscribe to the "shikata ga nai" resignation that pervaded so many people of my parents' generation. We need to stand up and raise our voices against hate and prejudice, because after they come for us, who will be next?

Cynthia Kokawa Lerner, Los Angeles

Ted Cruz ‘traitor’ billboards go up in his Texas neighbourhood

Gustaf Kilander
Fri, March 5, 2021


Ted Cruz en CPAC el 26 de febrero de 2021 en Orlando, Florida (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Ted Cruz is being hunted by mobile billboards accusing him of being a "traitor". Activist group Really American PAC posted an image on Twitter of a truck bearing a banner blasting the Texas Senator, encouraging followers to donate so that the activists can "stay in Cruz's neighbourhood, follow him to church and more".

The Super PAC says it is “dedicated to defending Truth, Democracy, Social Justice, and Environment” and is focused on “delivering high-impact political messaging” against right-wing politicians.

The group took aim at Mr Cruz after he voted against the congressional certification of the electoral college votes despite the ransacking of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on 6 January.


In a 17 January statement, the group said that “Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley deserve the most blame for firing up the violent mob of Trump supporters that attacked the U.S Capitol and killed five people”.

On the fundraising page for the billboard campaign, the group adds that “rioters who broke into the Senate were quoted as saying Cruz ‘would want us to do this.’ That’s why we’re crowdfunding these billboards in his hometown in Texas to remind his voters and neighbours that Ted Cruz is a traitor and also betrayed this country. He must face consequences, electorally and under the law”.

A video from Really American PAC calling for the expulsion of Mr Cruz and Mr Hawley has reached 3.7 million views on Twitter.

In a video by The New Yorker documenting the riot from inside the Capitol, a member of the mob says: "Ted Cruz would want us to do this, so I think we're good."

Read more:Follow live updates on the Biden Administration and the Trump post-presidency

A spokesperson for Mr Cruz responded in a statement on 17 January, saying: "As Sen. Cruz has said repeatedly, the terrorist attack on the Capitol was reprehensible, and the criminals who carried out the attack should be fully prosecuted. He has been clear, consistent, and unequivocal: violence is always wrong-whether from Left or Right-and violent criminals should go to jail for a very long time."

Mr Cruz voted to acquit former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial in which Democrats charged Mr Trump with inciting the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January. Really American PAC argues that Mr Cruz is guilty of the same crime.

The Texan is one of many Republicans eyeing a presidential run in 2024, but the field is frozen in place as long as a run from Mr Trump is possible.

Mr Cruz's approval rating among his home state voters nosedived after he fled to Cancun in Mexico during the power outages and freezing temperatures in Texas, The Houston Chronicle reported. Authorities at first thought that at least 40 people died from the cold in Texas, according to The Associated Press, but theDallas Morning News reported that the real number is likely much higher and will take months to ascertain.

The Independent has reached out to Really American PAC and Mr Cruz for comment.

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