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Anti-Asian hate crimes rise in LA area

By LIA ZHU in San Francisco | China Daily Global | Updated: 2021-10-22 11:27

People demonstrate against anti-Asian violence and racism on March 27, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. [Photo/Agencies]

Los Angeles County, the largest US county with 10.1 million people — 15 percent of whom are Asian American — has reported a 76 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes last year related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations said in a report released Wednesday that anti-Asian hate crimes rose to 44 in 2020 from 25 in 2019. That is the largest number since 2001, when there were 42 anti-Asian hate crimes after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in which the victims were South Asian, said the report.

The agency collected and analyzed data from the LA County Sheriff's Department¬, more than 40 city police departments, and dozens of police agencies at schools and community organizations. It has received about 1,400 reports since launching in June 2020.

In 10 of the 44 anti-Asian crimes, the suspects explicitly blamed the victims for COVID-19; in 15 of those crimes, anti-Chinese slurs specifically were used, the report said.

The most frequent criminal offense was simple assault, followed by intimidation, vandalism and aggravated assault, according to the report.

In one hate crime the report cited, a Chinese man was waiting at a bus stop when a white woman across the street started yelling, "Go back where you came from!" and then crossed the street and punched him three times in the face.

In another incident, a Vietnamese woman found her vehicle vandalized with a curse word scratched into the hood followed by "C19''. The front passenger window was shattered, all tires were punctured, and the dashboard, seats and center console were damaged.

The report also noted that underreporting of hate crimes is a serious problem in the Asian community because of language and cultural barriers, immigration status, unfamiliarity with the criminal justice system, and fear of retaliation.

"It did not help that the former president repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as 'china virus' and 'kung-flu,'" Human Relations Commission President Guadalupe Montaño said in a statement.

A 2020 study on politicians' stigmatizing rhetoric about Asian Americans suggests that former president Donald Trump is the greatest spreader among politicians of anti-Asian American rhetoric related to the pandemic.

San Francisco Police Commissioner Larry Yee, who grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown, said, "I notice a lot of fear in my community, and it's real."

He said Trump started using language such as "kung flu" or "China virus", and "that's when we saw the finger-pointing, and the Chinese are the problem here … and we saw a rash of violence".

California's Department of Justice reported anti-Asian hate crimes more than doubled, with a 107 percent jump from 2019, the biggest percentage increase among demographic groups.

"Right now, we are in a state of emergency and a state of crisis when it comes to API hate," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

A new study examining data from 16 jurisdictions across the country found a 164 percent increase in reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the first quarter of 2021 over the same period last year.

New York saw the greatest increase, at 223 percent, followed by 140 percent in San Francisco, 80 percent in Los Angeles and 60 percent in Boston, according to the study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

In the first six months of this year, Stop AAPI Hate, a platform tracking self-reported anti-Asian hate incidents, has received more than 4,500 incidents, almost the same amount of last year.

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