The Guardian
‘It’s time for people to listen to us’: Georgia’s Asian Americans vow to rise up against hatred
The high-level response from local leaders reflects a change in a state where the voices of Asian Americans have never been heard. Nyit Yong, 49, outside an H-Mart in Suwanee. ‘If I could speak to President Biden, would I ask if he has a plan to prevent further violence?’ Photo: Jesse Pratt López / The Guardian On Monday morning, the day before, a 21-year-old white man killed six Asian women and two others in the Atlanta metropolitan area, Dr. Michelle Au, who became the first state senator. a descendant of East Asia from Georgia just a few months ago, he got up to address his colleagues in the state capital. She talked about spitting, stabbing, punching and other acts of violence against Asian Americans last year, including incidents in Georgia. She told her colleagues that “alteration, exoticization … and racism against Asian Americans are not new” and spoke about the difficulty in changing these conditions “when … voices like yours are not always heard” . “We need help,” she pleaded. “We need people in power to defend us against hatred.” Unfortunately, it would not be the last time she would address the problem. She would soon be joined by her four Asian American colleagues at the Georgia assembly, as well as the growing number of community organizations that have formed in recent years, a reflection of how the state’s fastest growing population has become part of life in the former birthplace of the Confederation. In the days following the killings, as national and international media tried to explain the violence to their audiences, it was Georgia’s leaders with surnames like Au, Nguyen, Cho, Park and Yaqoob Mahmood who stood in front of cameras and tape recorders. This represented a high-profile local Asian-American response to the tragedy – which could have been unthinkable in Georgia just a decade ago. Members of the Atlanta American-Korean Committee Against Asian Hate Crime pose with posters safe from the deadly shots. Photo: Dustin Chambers / Reuters The result could be more steps taken to combat historically unprecedented Asian-American voices in the city, state and the wider American South, and what Bee Nguyen, Georgia’s first Vietnamese-American state representative, described as “ invisibility”. “We were taught, as Asian Americans, to keep our heads down, because our parents believed it was safer for us,” said Nguyen of the capital the day after the shooting. “What happened is that we are now invisible and … it is invisibility that has not protected us from xenophobia, hate crimes or gender-based violence.” On Thursday night, in a parking lot outside H Mart, the Korean-American supermarket in Suwanee, Gwinnett County, Sack Wichaisack echoed Nguyen. “What happens to Asians is that when something happens to us, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves,” said Wichaisack, who was born in Laos. Having people like Au and Nguyen at the center of the public response to this week’s tragic violence “makes a difference,” he added. “It makes us feel seen.” The owner of the 47-year-old construction company, who moved to Georgia in 2003, also noted how the black community responds to racially motivated violence. “I see people in the black community, when something happens to them, they corner them together … [and] I think Asians need to be more attentive. ”Nyit Yong, 49, outside an H-Mart in Suwanee. ‘If I could speak to President Biden, would I ask if he has a plan to prevent further violence?’ Photo: Jesse Pratt López / The Guardian “We are at the heart of the civil rights movement,” said Victoria Huynh, vice president of the Pan-Asian Community Services Center (CPACS), based in Atlanta, which calls itself the “largest and the oldest organization in the Southeast to focus on the issues and concerns of Asian Americans. ” “Black community leaders set the stage and created opportunities for Asian Americans,” said Huynh, adding that his organization’s work on issues such as voter engagement is inspired by civil rights icons Martin Luther King and Congressman John Lewis. The growing participation in the public life of Asian Americans in Georgia, which began several decades ago, was most evident in last year’s general election, when the number of Asian American state legislators increased to five for the first time, increasing the number of detainees. of local jobs across the Atlanta metropolitan area. In Gwinnett County, the second largest in the state, the Asian vote totaled 8.5%, a record. Dekalb County, the third largest in the state, also offered election materials in Korean, making it the first in the state’s 233-year history to offer voters access in an Asian language. At the same time, the increase in representation challenges the dynamics of political power in the state, which for much of its history has been structured in terms of black and white voters and elected officials. “With the growth of political power, there comes hatred and an adverse reaction,” said historian Keri Leigh Merritt. Historically, she said, “Blacks were seen as a threat to white supremacy – but now there are other threats.” Merritt pointed to the Reconstruction period, when dozens of black legislators came to power in Georgia, soon followed by a period of violence that resulted in a lack of representation in the assembly for nearly a century. “A major reason for the failure of Reconstruction is because no one has been held responsible – neither the slave owners nor the Confederates,” she said. “This could be happening again,” she said, pointing to the Trump administration’s incitement to violence against Asian Americans during the Covid pandemic and the January 6 US Capitol invasion, and the lack of consequences for such actions so far. Nyit Yong stood in the wind outside H Mart on Thursday night, trying to understand things she saw more recently than at any time in her two decades in Georgia. “Some white Americans, deep down, have this stereotype about Asians,” said the 49-year-old IT professional. “But in the past four years, the country’s leader has brought that up.” An Asian shopping mall in Suwanee. Photo: Jesse Pratt López / The Guardian She was referring to Trump’s insistence on linking the coronavirus to China or Asia in various ways, and how it encouraged racist expressions by ordinary white Americans. Yong said she is concerned for the safety of her and her daughter, a student at the University of Georgia. “I texted her yesterday and told her to be careful, to be aware of what’s around her,” she said. Like Wichaisack, she brought up the idea of buying weapons for protection. “I have Chinese friends who own gas stations – they thought about buying weapons,” she said. Yong was also excited by the platforms offered to Asian American leaders in Georgia after Tuesday’s violence. “They bring our voices, our problems,” she said. She mentioned Joe Biden’s visit to the city. “If I could talk to him,” she said, “would I ask if he has a plan to prevent further violence?” She also asked herself, “Why can a young man have that kind of feeling towards Asian women – where did he get that from? Why do we still have people in this country who are so racist? Who taught you that? “Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood is the executive director of the Asian American Advocacy Fund, one of the organizations that has joined with others to ensure that” we are targeting those most affected “by Tuesday’s violence – the victims’ families and the communities they come from Mahmood has lived in Georgia for 22 years and saw the number and types of organizations like hers multiply during that period. She remembers trying to raise awareness about an incident in which a white man shot and killed three students Muslims in neighboring North Carolina in 2015. “I felt like I was doing this alone – begging the elect to pay attention,” she said. Now, she and many others are meeting with members of the community affected by the recent killings, seeking provide help with anything from translation to legal support Flowers and posters are displayed in an impromptu memorial outside the Gold Spa. Photo: Alyssa Pointer / AP Victoria Huynh, from CPACS, has also been organizing what she calls “listening sessions” with members of the community in recent weeks, as concerns have increased over the wave of violence against Asian Americans. People are “traumatized,” she said – “seeing images of violence across the country, with someone like our grandfather, our aunt, our uncle.” “If that had happened 20 years ago, it would have been different,” she said. “Now, we are better equipped to respond to something like that.” The two organizations and other organizations held a mid-week press conference to discuss their response. Mahmood said he hoped more attention would be paid to the different Asian American populations living in the state, and that “Georgia’s elected officials will see what our needs are.” “Our communities have changed,” she said. “We hope that Georgia will change along with that.” Outside a Korean BBQ Chicken restaurant, Thursday night, April Chung said, “It’s time for people to hear us.” The 28-year-old, who arrived in Buford, Georgia, from South Korea 10 years ago, said: “This week, my heart broke – that this man was targeting Asians.” She said she was concerned for her parents’ safety and “I am afraid to go to Walmart or [supermarket chain] Kroger. ”Chung looked at several local Korean-language newspapers from a nearby shelf, including one whose reporter had spoken to a witness to the murders. That same day, another local Korean vehicle would be the first to speak to the son of one of the victims. Chung said the vehicles, while small, have an advantage over English media: ties to the community, including a shared language. “For Korean culture, when something happens, we go together,” she said. Asked what she would say to Biden if she could, she fell silent, answering, after a pause: “I’m still emotional”. Then she added: “He would understand what it means to be a victim, what it means to be in a foreign country. Doing this [meeting], I hope people who think Asians are bad – change your mind ”.