The Guardian
Almost $ 800,000 raised for two elderly Asian people attacked in San Francisco
The video of an injured and crying Xiao Zhen Xie on a street corner has led thousands to share messages and donate San Francisco has seen an increase in attacks on elderly Asian people in recent weeks. Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images The GoFundMe pages for two elderly Asian victims of assault in San Francisco raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors around the world, while the US staggered with the Atlanta shooting that killed eight people, including six asian women. The day after the Atlanta shooting, Xiao Zhen Xie, 75, was at a San Francisco intersection, waiting to cross the street, when a white man ran up to her and punched her in the face. In a video of the incident, Xie points to the wooden plank she used to counterattack. The footage of her sobbing, holding a cold compress against her bleeding eye as the police arrested her attacker, hit a raw nerve as the country faced a wave of anti-Asian attacks. “My mom is dizzy, very scared and traumatized – and very hurt,” Xie’s daughter Dong-Mei Li told KPIX on Thursday. “The right eye is still unable to see anything and is still bleeding, and we have something to absorb the bleeding,” she said. The fundraising page created by Xie’s grandson, John Chen, raised more than $ 649,000 and was the most visited fundraiser on GoFundMe in the past 24 hours, said a spokesman for the organizing platform. More than 22,500 people in 50 U.S. states and 55 countries contributed. Thousands shared messages of sympathy and support. “No grandmother should experience this type of hatred,” said one donor. “I cry whenever I think of her and her family. I wish her a strong and quick recovery, ”said another. Police say Steven Jenkins, 39, is responsible for the assault on Xie, as well as the assault on Ngoc Pham, an 83-year-old Vietnamese American who was shopping in the local market when he was attacked. Police said they were still investigating the two attacks. Pham is in the hospital, suffering from a broken nose and neck injuries, according to the GoFundMe page that the Community Youth Center in San Francisco created to help him pay medical bills. Pham “has always had a positive outlook on life because he survived 17 years in a Vietnamese concentration camp,” notes his page. So far, donors have contributed more than $ 137,600. The Stop AAPI Hate group reported that, since last March, there have been almost 3,800 reports of anti-Asian incidents across the country – although many more likely have not been reported, they said. Anti-Asian rhetoric, fueled by Donald Trump and the extreme right’s insistence on using offensive and stigmatizing language to describe the coronavirus, has helped to provoke violence, advocates said. shook the community. Earlier this year, an 84-year-old Thai immigrant, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was killed in San Francisco after being thrown to the ground. This week Pak Ho, a 75-year-old man from Hong Kong, died in Oakland after being mugged and robbed. Xie’s grandson, Chen, said the family was delighted with the support they received. And Chen shared a message from Xie, translated from Cantonese: “She hopes that the younger generation of Asian Americans can defend each other and that they can defend the elderly.”