A makeshift memorial is seen outside one of the spas targeted in the shooting that occurred on March 16, 2021, in Acworth, Ga.
Mike Stewart / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Mike Stewart / AP
A makeshift memorial is seen outside one of the spas targeted in the shooting that occurred on March 16, 2021, in Acworth, Ga.
Mike Stewart / AP
Activists and community members is preparing for the one year anniversary of the dead shooting incident at an Atlanta-area spa when a man killed eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent.
Celebrations will take place on March 16, but events kicked off Saturday with a day of community remembrance. A larger protest against racism and anti-Asian violence called “Break the Silence” is scheduled for Wednesday at the Georgia Capitol. Other cities, such as Chicago, New York, Houston, San Francisco and Washington DC, will also host their own versions of the rally.
About 200 people gathered Saturday near Atlanta at the city’s memorial to comfort women who were forced into sex slavery by Japan during World War II. The event features art, music and poetry to celebrate the overcast week.
“We want to leave the actual day, March 16th, a quieter day for reflection. … We want to provide space for families to grieve however they want,” Phi said. Nguyen, chief executive officer of Asian Americans. Advance Justice in Atlanta.
Long Tran, a business owner running for state representative in the region and who attended the event, told NPR: “The atmosphere right now is a mix of emotions.
“I think for some people, they’ve said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year.’ So much time has passed, so much has been done. And you still feel like there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Tran said.
A year later, attacks on Asian-American women are still a top concern
Attacks against Asian Americans add once the pandemic started, with FBI report increase in hate crimes against Asians since 2019.
The Stop AAPI Hate group has monitor nearly 11,000 hate crimes against Asian Americans between March 2020 and December 2021, with more incidents occurring in 2021 than in 2020.
Most of those cases target Asian women.
And a recent one survey published earlier this month from the National Forum on Asian Pacific American Women (NAPAWF) found that 74% of Asian-American and Pacific Islander women reported experiencing racism and/ or discriminated against in the last year and 53% said the perpetrator was a stranger or someone they did not know.
For East Asian respondents in particular, 51% of women said they feel less safe today than they did at the start of the pandemic.
AAPI leaders want to continue to pressure public opinion
“You cannot ignore data like that,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of NAPAWF, said of the organization’s new survey. “We need to deal with this.”
“I think it takes commitment from both the community and from leaders in positions of power to direct the resources to make this happen in the long run… we can’t just talk about it. it’s when someone is murdered or the anniversary of a horrible event,” she said.
Choimorrow adds that part of this week’s struggle is that Asian Americans will not be entering this week as it has been a year away from the event; Violence against AAPI has continued in the past year since the shooting.
“We’ve had other Asian-American women murdered since then, and that’s really heartbreaking for me,” she said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told NPR this week that the response to the rise in hate crimes against Blacks, Asians and Jews is “in the DNA of the Department of Justice.”
And last year, President Biden signed a bill aims to make hate crime reporting more accessible and authorizes funding to local governments for hate crime response programs.
