By Carey Lin and Martin Ma
On March 16, 2021, a white man shot and killed six Asian women, totaling eight deaths in the same day. Across three massage or salon parlors, the six Asian victims’ ages ranged from 33 to 74-years old. This has since sparked an outrage across the nation, calling to attention the historical and longtime discrimination against Asians.
Since the pandemic began, the association of COVID-19 and China has caused an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans regardless of their ethnicity. In just the past two weeks, there have been several reports of Asian elderly being beaten on the streets across the country from San Francisco to New York City, as recent as Monday, March 29.
In Boston, a city with over 27% of immigrants, fears of increased and public violence has also sparked several conversations on how the City’s key players are addressing hate crimes in the city. A primary concern of many is what constitutes a hate crime, and whether or not one should report it. During the City Council hearing on March 30, Bethany Li from the Greater Boston Legal Services’ (GBLS) Asian Outreach Unit said, “After the Atlanta shootings, there’s been a lot of discussion about what it means to ensure justice, and more often than not, there’s talk about law enforcement at that table and at the forefront of that conversation, but people we represent are often scared of calling the police.”
Stephen Moy, Sergeant of Boston Police Department’s (BPD) District One which includes Chinatown, has been the supervisor of the district’s community service office for more than three years. He explained that “sometimes just the fear itself is worse than the actual crime, because fear can last for several days or weeks or months.”
While Boston’s District One, Chinatown, has not seen an uptick in hate crime, “but we wanted to make sure that folks knew we were available,” said Sergeant Moy. “If there is a true emergency, 911 is your best option.” Sergeant Moy, also Asian American himself, oftentimes share his email* to the public as a way to report any instances of hate crime or discrimination. The BPD has also ensured that there is an Asian police officer on patrol regularly between the hours of 7:30 A.M. to midnight to help address problems and ease cultural barriers.
Furthermore, within the BPD, the Civil Rights Unit (CRU) has also released both an Enlish and Chinese pamphlet outlining what is considered discrimination. While ultimately they are the ones determining whether an incident is a hate crime or not, instances that are not hate crimes, according to an officer at CRU, still remain in their records in order to monitor any patterns.
Within the community, local nonprofit leaders hosted a Massachusetts Town Hall to address anti-Asian Racism on March 25. Several individuals and representatives in the community shared their experiences with racism in the country and how it has escalated in the past year. Chinatown’s restaurants and small businesses have been severely affected. New Golden Gate Seafood restaurant manager May said that “before the pandemic, we have so many different groups of people that would come, from office workers in the downtown area to families to a majority of blacks, Latinos, Vietnamese, […] But I haven’t seen anybody since the lockdown.”
Only now taking the spotlight in mainstream media, Asian descrimination itself, however, is not a new phenomenon. Discrimination against Asian Americans can be traced back to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese Internment Camps, and the Anti-Filipino sentiment. Thao Ho, a member of the GBLS Asian Outreach Unit, said “the surging fear as a result of heightened anti Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic is not a new feeling. […] For the community members I have worked with specifically, there is a constant presence in their lives, way before the pandemic even started, because of the structural violence they encounter in their day to day lives.”
At the City Council Hearing held on March 30, council members and Chinatown spokespersons came together to address the hate crimes and brought up more examples. Councilor Ed Flynn shared a story from early last year in 2020. He said that a student from Boston Latin spoke at one of the public meetings and said, “she would get on the train, as an Asian teenager, and all the white people on the train would get off the train. They associated her with the Coronavirus.”
Suzanne Lee from the Chinese Progressive Association Outlined how the Chinatown community has been systematically forced out of the city due to the city’s developments and a lack of consideration for the community’s people. Lee said, “They’ve already taken half of Chinatown to build the expressway and the Mass. Turnpike and allow institutional expansion in the other third.”
At the hearing, on top of identifying what constitutes a ‘hate crime,’ spokespersons also discussed how Asian discrimination should be dealt and and talked about. Li from GBLS said that not only is there a need for a space to discuss and handle harassment, but also “We’re talking about the history of people of color in the United States, and we’re talking about how that is incorporated in K to 12 schools.”
Boston Human Rights Commission (HRC) Executive Director Evandro Carvalho suggested having the HRC “to sort of play a significant role in this space, in terms of helping BPD and helping community organizations and Asian Americans in the city of Boston.” Councilor Andrea Campbell of District Four added to that, stressing “The importance of creating systems that are separate and apart from law enforcement and strengthening those systems that work, the HRC is one of those systems that can be very impactful.”
However, throughout the pandemic, Li said it is the local nonprofits who have been instrumental in helping Asian Americans weather through crises they have experienced, as they have the means to bridge cultural gaps and language barriers. As nonprofits continue to service their clients and take the initiative to offer themselves as safe spaces, there is discussion on how changes can occur systematically. Senator Markey spoke at the Chinatown Gate on Wednesday, March 31, condemning anti-Asian violence and calling for stronger laws against hate crimes. Despite the discourse, it is still unclear who should be responsible for creating a space for individuals to safely report or discuss hate crimes or racially motivated harassment.
The question of whether or not speaking up would have an impact in amending the situation is still a concern for many. Speaking from personal experience, Stephen Moy said that something passed down from the older generations is the culture of not speaking up. “Just keep your head down, you weren’t physically hurt. So let’s just move on, I guess a lot of elderly or most first generation immigrants think that if I’m not physically hurt. I’ll just move on,” said Moy.
This culture is still prevalent today, as the younger generations realize that speaking up and reporting incidents are important. Pan Asian Alliance Co-President Sydney Chun said “[…] A lot of Asian people and communities haven’t really talked about the things they face […] if you weren’t harmed or physically assaulted or anything like that then it’s no big deal. We have to accept them and live with that. But now we see people being killed over being Asian in Atlanta and it’s like the more that we accept these things and don’t report the more we’re allowing incidents like that to come to fruition. so I think that we just collectively all need to start fighting and not be scared of how other people are going to see us just because we’re speaking up for ourselves.”
