Kiwi Wongpeng was stopped at a traffic light in suburban Cleveland when a man pulled up next to her and motioned for her to roll down the window.
“Get out of my country – this is an assignment!” he shouted from his bakkie. After a pause, he added, “I will kill you.”
This was not her first issue with racism. But she had never heard anything so direct and violent until April, as cities across the country closed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The man, she believes, must have mistaken her for Chinese and blamed the virus that originated in Wuhan, China.
“I felt afraid for not only myself but also my community and Asians across the country,” Wongpeng, 34, said. His family immigrated to the United States 20 years ago and ran a Thai restaurant.
Her sense of growing hatred is confirmed by data. In a survey among police departments in 16 major U.S. cities, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a research office in the state of San Bernardino, found a total of 122 anti-Asian hate crimes last year – an increase of 149 % versus the 49 in 2019.
The total climb in 15 of the 16 cities, with New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and San Jose experiencing the largest increases and their highest score in at least five years.
Chinese and Korean restaurants have been vandalized with anti-Asian labels and stereotypes – “stop eating dogs”, the graffiti said in a noodle shop in New York. Elderly Asian Americans were pushed into the street in broad daylight. And a Burmese refugee and his children who were attacked by a man with a knife.
The increase in anti-Asian crime occurred when total hate crimes against all minority groups fell by 7% – from 1,845 to 1,717.
Brian Levin, director of the Cal State Center, described the increase in hatred as “historical significance for our country and the Asian American community.”
“Opinion polls, ridiculous online activity, harassment and crime data have coincided to show a large spread and increase in aggressive behavior towards Asian Americans,” he said.
The rise is almost certainly related to the pandemic, which has its origins in China, and which has caused greater concern about the threat the country’s growing economic and political power poses to the United States.
President Trump called it the ‘Wuhan virus’ and tormented critics who were concerned that he was addressing anti-Asian sentiment as ‘politically correct’. A recent Pew survey found that China’s negative views in the US peaked at almost 20 years.
In New York, where the number of anti-Asian hate crimes has jumped from three to 28, all but four are linked to the coronavirus.
Many of the 2020 incidents in New York – and across the country – occurred in the early days of the pandemic when fears were at their highest.
In February, an American woman from Asia wearing a face mask at a subway station in Manhattan was kicked and punched by a man who called her “sick.”
In March, an Asian American man who was walking with his ten-year-old son was followed and beaten over the head by a stranger who assaulted him for not wearing a mask.
In April, an Asian American woman was attacked on a bus in the Bronx by a woman and three teenage girls who hit her with an umbrella and accused her of starting the pandemic.
“There is no doubt about it: all Asians feel extra vulnerable because the attacks have definitely increased,” said Don Lee, a Brooklyn community activist. “The harassment, pushed, pushed.”
The most comprehensive national data on hate crimes comes from the FBI, which defines them as “offenses” against a person or property that is wholly or partly motivated by the prejudice of an offender against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity , gender or gender. identity.”
The FBI, which relies on voluntary submissions from law enforcement agencies, is not expected to publish figures for 2020 until November. But all indications are that this will be a record year for hate crimes against Asians.
Although most of what is known so far comes from large police departments that have released their own data, Levin said some of the worst anti-Asian hate crimes have occurred in smaller cities – including the attack on the Burmese refugee and his two boys.
Last March, 34-year-old Bawi Cung went grocery shopping at a Sam’s Club in Midland, Texas, when a man grabbed a knife from a nearby shelf.
Cung was cut on his face, his 3-year-old was stabbed in the back and his 6-year-old was stabbed in the face.
An employee of the Sam’s Club intervened and tackled the suspect, 19-year-old Jose Gomez, who is charged with hate crime and attempted murder and is awaiting trial.
“Gomez has admitted that he admitted to trying to kill the family,” Midland Dist. Atty. Laura Nodolf. “He thought they had brought the virus here and tried to spread it” and that “all Asians should come from China.”
“Most people think that hate crime, white sheets, white hats are behind someone of African descent,” she said. “It’s a whole new dynamic.”
The data from the police department does not contain harassment, which was much more common, but is not considered criminal.
Stop AAPI Hate, a tracker supported by Asian American advocacy groups, recorded 1,990 anti-Asian harassment incidents and 246 assault cases in the ten months after it was launched in March 2020.
Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of the tracker and executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, said Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the coronavirus is partly to blame.
“In a recent analysis, we found that a quarter of the incidents we tracked down included an offender using language similar to Trump’s,” she said. “Things like ‘Wuhan virus’, ‘China virus’, ‘kung flu’ and ‘go back to your country.’ ‘
The victims detected by AAPI Hate were largely Chinese Americans – 40% – and Korean Americans – 15%.
“This and the victim’s statements tell us that people are likely to target people who believe in China. “COVID-19 did not start in Korea,” Kulkarni said. “But racists are not always accurate.”
Mari Cobb, a 26-year-old laboratory technician for immunology and genomics at the University of Chicago, said she was upset to see how hate even hit her. Her mother is a Japanese American and her father is white, which she says is how people usually see her.
In a Taco Bell in January, she was filling her cup at the soda dispenser when a man approached her.
“The Orient touched the dispenser!” he shouted. ‘Stop her! She started this whole thing! ‘
The reference to COVID-19 was clear.
Cobb later shared her story on Instagram and eventually it was on standagainsthatred.org, a testimonial website recently launched by the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
“My mom raised me and said it could happen,” Cobb said. “But I think my white privilege prevented me from experiencing a lot.”
In an era of increasing activism against racism, she said that concern should not be limited to black and Latino communities.
“There has been an increase in more people trying to become actively anti-racist, and I think that’s great, but I also think you should include Asians in the conversation.”
Times authors Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Minneapolis and Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta contributed to this report.