“When I was attacked on the subway, there were so many New Yorkers around me, but no one came to my aid, no one made a video,” said the 61-year-old Filipino American.
“I was afraid of not surviving … We are all New Yorkers and we should take care of each other.”
Quintana, a New Yorker, described the February 3 attack on city leaders, Asian Americans and their supporters who attended the “Rise Up Against Anti-Asian Hate” rally in Foley Square on Saturday.
“Stop Asian hatred!” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told the crowd. “This is the message that we must convey, not just in New York, but across the country: Stop hating Asians! Stop now!”
US Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told the crowd that there were signs of increased violence at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Tragically, these warnings have come true and the Asian American community in New York and the country has been the target of discrimination and harassment based on race,” said Schumer.
New York Attorney General Letitia James encouraged rally participants to report hate crimes in her office.
“Come to my office so that we can report these individuals who hate us, so that we can close them down. Any attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said James.
Pearl Sun, a New York resident, attended the rally but did not speak to the crowd. She told CNN that she is now cautious when walking the city streets.
“I must say I go out the door and get ready, get ready,” she said. “I make sure I don’t listen to any more music when I’m walking. I don’t listen to any more podcasts. … I want to make sure I pay attention to whatever or whatever is going on around me.”
“I think the rhetoric of our previous government was definitely the catalyst for all of this. Anti-Asian sentiment has always existed, and we have had a lot of laws in the past that were also not good for us: the Japanese internment camps, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
“It’s been an ongoing situation, but the previous rhetoric has increased all of its hatred, calling it the kung flu virus and China’s virus, and unfortunately we are an easy target.”
Sun said the rhetoric has heightened hatred, especially in cases involving elderly Americans of Asian descent.
“They are defenseless and that is cowardly, and it pisses me off, it really pisses me off,” said Sun.
City resident Will Lex Ham said many of his family members live in fear and anxiety. According to him, the Asian community does not receive resources proportional to the population of the city, state and country.
“We are just tired. We are tired of being the scapegoat for many of the pandemic problems. We are tired of being ignored,” said Ham.
Rising attack reports
The demonstration was organized by the Asian American Federation, an umbrella organization that advocates better policies and services for Asian Americans.
The federation says there were “almost 500 incidents of prejudice or hate crimes in 2020, ranging from verbal to physical attacks, coughing or spitting, avoiding, among other forms of discrimination.”
These numbers were collected by AAF, the advocacy group Stop AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islanders) Hate, the NYPD and the NYC Commission on Human Rights, according to the AAF.
“However, these are a fraction of the actual number of incidents that have occurred, since most incidents are not reported. For example, more than 90% of the reports collected by AAF have not been reported to the NYPD or the Human Rights Commission of the NYC, “the AAF said in a press release.