Protests against violence against Asian Americans broke out in several cities on Wednesday after a shooting in Atlanta left eight dead, six of whom were Asian women.
In Washington, DC, approximately 200 people gathered in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood. Protesters held a vigil and marched and shouted through the city, carrying signs that read “Life in Asia is important” and more.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC: protesters gathered in Chinatown to #StopAsianHate pic.twitter.com/KThNMDRVgJ
– philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 17, 2021
THE #StopAsianHate protest organized by @tlcollectivedc is in motion. Left the Penn Quarter and is now at the convention center on 9th & NY NW. (@ wusa9) pic.twitter.com/XGiiySZm9R
– John Henry (@JohnHenryWUSA) March 18, 2021
“I am angry. I am angry,” Janet Namkung, who attended the vigil, told NBC4 in Washington. “I know people who have been called all sorts of slanders, fearing life on the streets every day.”
In New York City, hundreds of people gathered in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, an area where a large Asian-American population lives, to hold a vigil and protest the increase in violence against Asians, the New York Times reported.
Group members held candles and made tearful speeches, according to the Times, in addition to shouting “Stop the hate”.
Angélica Acevedo, a reporter from the region, shared photos and video of the vigil on Twitter.
Dozens gathered at Diversity Plaza tonight on a vigil to mourn the 8 victims, 6 of whom were Asian American women, from last night’s mass shooting in Atlanta, and to condemn the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. pic.twitter.com/VJ4soNwEo2
– Angélica M. Acevedo (@ angacevedo15) March 18, 2021
Chuck Park, a Jackson Heights resident, said he was scared for his family. He talked about his parents, who have owned a store on 74th St for 35 years, returning home with stories of assault.
Park also brought flowers for people to share with sex workers and small business owners in the area. pic.twitter.com/sLKMOspQrw
– Angélica M. Acevedo (@ angacevedo15) March 18, 2021
In Atlanta, memorials were set up outside the massage parlors where the shootings took place earlier this week, reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cherokee County, Georgia, resident Cindy Anderson placed a plant outside one of the massage rooms, Youngs Asian Massage, telling the newspaper that the deaths in the shooting “weighed heavily on her heart.”
“They are our neighbors and they deserved better than that,” she said through tears. “These people were coming to work yesterday, just as they do every day of the week.”
Atlanta police said on Wednesday it was too early to determine whether shootings in massage parlors in the city were a hate crime.
Suspect sniper Robert Aaron Long, who is white, said the attacks were not racially motivated, according to authorities, adding that the 21-year-old suspect said he had a “sexual addiction”.
A recent study by the State University of California Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism showed that hate crimes against Asian Americans in 16 of the nation’s largest cities increased by almost 150 percent in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate said on Tuesday that it received nearly 3,800 reports of hate incidents against Asian Americans last year.
President biden
Joe Biden’s Morning ReportThe Hill – Presented by Facebook – Forget courtesy in Congress. Frontier shuffles debate on immigration in the Senate. Republican Party seeks measures to ban trans athletes from gathering voters MORE last week, he condemned “cruel hate crimes” against Asian American and Pacific Island communities during a prime-time speech that marked the first anniversary of U.S. pandemic restrictions
“It is wrong. It is not American. And it must stop,” said Biden.