Asian American community calls for unity against violence during Lunar New Year holiday - kusi.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kusi.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lee is the co-chair of the San Diego Asian Pacific Islander (API) Coalition and executive director of Pacific Arts Movement (presenter of the San Diego Asian Film Festival), and lives in Mira Mesa.
The Asian Pacific Islander (API) community commemorated Lunar New Year on Friday, almost one year after the United States reported its first case of COVID-19 community transmission. Yet long before the pandemic’s inevitable spread, API communities were already dealing with another insidious disease racism and xenophobia.
As early as January 2020, reports surfaced of small businesses facing declining patronage and individuals across the country being victims of hate as the novel coronavirus began to spread globally. Fueled by the former president’s penchant for applying labels rather than applying strategic solutions, the uptick in anti-API sentiment was documented by the national Stop AAPI Hate campaign which saw 1,497 reported incidents in its first four weeks of existence.
The
editorial board operates independently from the U-T newsroom but holds itself to similar ethical standards. We base our editorials and endorsements on reporting, interviews and rigorous debate, and strive for accuracy, fairness and civility in our section. Disagree?
Then-President Donald Trump’s despicable decision last year to call the coronavirus the “China virus” continues to lead to hate crimes and harassment against the Asian Pacific Islander community. In recent days, a Thai man was attacked and killed in San Francisco, three elderly residents of the Chinatown neighborhood of Oakland were assaulted, a Vietnamese woman was beaten in San Jose, and a Filipino man had his face slashed on the New York subway. Brutal video clips document some of this.