Hundreds of people march in Koreatown, Los Angeles, as part of the “Stop Asian Hate” rallies across the country

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Koreatown on Saturday for a demonstration of unity and marched down Olympic Boulevard to demand an end to the wave of racism and anti-Asian violence, including the killings in the Atlanta area earlier this month, which fueled fear and outrage. in the community.

Drums and screams filled the air as protesters marched and held up signs saying: “# Stop Asian hatred” and “Enough”.

At the rally, community leaders, local politicians and activists shared exciting stories about being bullied, scapegoats, discriminated against and treated as strangers or less than Americans. Many spoke out against the alarming increase in hate crimes against members of Asian American and Pacific Island communities during the pandemic and called for government action to prevent racist attacks.

Friends Christina Huynh, 39, and Carolyn Dao, 32, drove together from Orange County to the rally after learning about the event on social media with celebrities Kelly Hu and Olivia Munn.

“I’m sick of all the hatred – all the mentality of blaming the new group,” said Dao, a psychology student at Cal State Long Beach who is from Garden Grove. “It is disgusting to see people chasing our most vulnerable.”

Dao said his turning point was the death of eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, in the Atlanta area this month. Cherokee County Sheriff Captain Jay Baker told reporters that the man arrested in connection with the murders was having “a very bad day” and blamed “sex addiction”, not racism, for the massacre.

Dao felt powerless and enraged by the comments that seemed to sympathize with the suspect instead of the victims.

“It was considered a ‘bad day’, that’s what affected me,” said Dao.

Baker was later removed as a spokesman for the case after it emerged that a Facebook page that appeared to belong to him promoted the sale of an anti-Asian t-shirt that blamed China for the coronavirus crisis.

“I have experienced racism all my life, but I just kept it to myself,” said Dao, whose parents came to the United States as refugees from Vietnam. “I was taught to keep my head down, not to cause confusion.”

Another rally was held in downtown Los Angeles and in West Hollywood. Hundreds of protesters gathered on the avenues La Cienega and Santa Monica, shouting and cheering at the busy intersection as the lines of cars honked in support.

Ann Le, of Los Angeles, held a sign with the face and name of Vincent Chin, the Chinese-American man whose assassination in 1982 in Detroit remains a focus of anti-Asian racism in America. His killers, two white men, did not serve a prison sentence and were fined $ 3,000.

“During the Atlanta shooting, I was very upset,” said Le, 39. “I didn’t know how to channel my anger and I was very depressed about it.” A collage artist whose work is largely inspired by the Vietnamese American experience, Le created a plaque from her original piece, highlighting the image of Chin against the faces of his killers.

Le took part in the march because “we need everyone,” she said. “I think of the myth of the model minority, in which we remain silent and are afraid of not appearing. I felt like I needed to show up. “

The events were part of a national day of action promoted by the ANSWER Coalition, with similar rallies taking place in other cities in California and the United States, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., Queens. in New York City and Seattle.

Since the coronavirus outages began last March, thousands of Asian Americans have faced racist verbal and physical attacks or been rejected by others, according to a recent report by Stop AAPI Hate. Anti-Asian hate crimes skyrocketed in Los Angeles and other major cities. Official statistics capture only a fraction of the incidents, as many are not reported.

Experts say the hatred was fueled by the misplaced guilt over the pandemic and ex-President Trump’s fiery rhetoric.

Dao said the attacks brought intergenerational divisions within families over how to respond, “and my family is not exempt from that.” But she hopes that just seeing people like her on the streets raising their voices will inspire others to speak.

Huynh, who is also Vietnamese-American, said she attended the Koreatown rally to give voice to “fear, anger and sadness, often tacit, especially for our older generation”.

She said her grandmother and father have been beaten in the past, “but they haven’t reported it to the police because they don’t want to be a nuisance. We always hear: ‘Don’t cause problems’ ”.

“Well, I can’t be silent anymore,” said Huynh. “I felt that I needed to speak for those who cannot or do not want to.”

The march ended on Boulevard Olímpico and Avenida Normandia, where elected officials, community leaders and other speakers spoke into the microphone.

They said that Asian Americans were attacked in their homes and businesses, shouted and spit. They emphasized that the recent wave of attacks is just the latest in a history of anti-Asian discrimination that stretches back over a century in this country.

“The Asian hate crime existed long before COVID-19, but it was really exacerbated by the former White House occupier when he used language like ‘China virus’ and ‘kung flu’, and we have seen an alarming increase” , Said Steve Kang, vice president of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles and one of the main organizers of the rally.

“We are seeing our elders being attacked. They are being pushed, they are being kicked. Brutal murders are taking place, ”said Kang. “So we feel that we can no longer be silent and we have to get up. And I think Atlanta was the last straw for many of us. “

Kang estimated that more than 1,000 people attended the rally. Many participants said they were simply fed up.

“My mother, when she brought me here, said to me, ‘This is the land of the free and you can live the American dream,'” said Kathy Wu of Los Angeles. “But now, our mothers, our fathers, they are being attacked. And I’m scared for my community. “

Bruce Lie, vice president of an Indonesian diaspora group, said he marched to support the entire Asian American and Pacific Island community, especially Korean Americans who were among the victims of the Atlanta killings.

Lie has lived in the Alhambra for two decades and said he has never seen so much hatred towards his predominantly Chinese neighbors as he did last year.

“I’m here to say it’s enough,” said Lie.

Community groups are planning additional rallies and vigils. At the same time, they are pushing for tangible legislative changes to support victims.

This includes a proposed legislation to establish a unified statewide hotline for Asian Americans to report hate incidents in the languages ​​they speak, Kang said.

“The Asian-American community has long been seen as an invisible group within the United States, and we really wanted to show, in large numbers, that we are no longer invisible,” said Kang. “We need to raise our voices and say, ‘Stop hating Asians'”.