Asian Americans try to find voices amid rise in anti-Asian violence

Asian Americans have started to find their voices as anti-Asian incidents have been rising since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guardian reported on Monday.

Stop AAPI Hate, a not-for-profit coalition that has been tracking anti-Asian incidents, has reported at least 3,800 incidents ranging from being spat on to verbal and physical assault.

"It's been going on for a while," said Natty Jumreornvong, who grew up in Thailand and came to the US for college. She was also kicked and dragged across the ground once by a man, but nobody came to help her when she called out for help.

She started to know the importance of speaking out against anti-Asian hate since the attack in February. "We're not really taught to speak out." she said.

The last few weeks have seen dozens of rallies against anti-Asian hate across the country, as well as viral social media campaigns spreading awareness of the issue. Asian American activism has never been at such a widespread scale in decades, according to many historians and advocates.

"They were different, but they were merged together" in the US, said Linda Trinh Vo, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of California at Irvine. The phenomenon worked "to prevent them from being integrated into this country".

Asian Americans make up 20 million of the US population and have backgrounds in more than 20 countries in Asia, each with distinct languages, cultures and histories.