Online NewsHour: --September 9, 1997

CRIMES OF HATE

September 9, 1997

TRANSCRIPT

Hate crimes against Asian Americans are on the rise, according to a new report. How strong is Anti-Asian bias in America? After this background report, Elizabeth Farnsworth talks to four Asian Americans about the problem and the possible solutions.

A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
September 9, 1996:
Elizabeth Farnsworth leads a discussion on the rise of hate crimes against Asian-Americans.
August 7, 1996:
An Online NewsHour report: how have Asian Americans been affected by the campaign finance scandal?
July 3, 1997:
Read an Online forum with Clinton's race advisory panel .
June 16, 1997:
A report on the President's One America race initiative.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the race relations.
OUTSIDE LINKS
Homepage for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.
Homepage for the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce.

SPENCER MICHELS: On a Sunday evening last May, Korean-born Sylvia Kim--who has lived in the United States for 50 years--was attacked by a tall white man as she left a bookstore and walked toward Union Square in downtown San Francisco.
SYLVIA KIM: A young man looked down on me, and then said--very close to me--and I could see his face turning red as he was screaming to me, and said, "My mother is not Chinese, but you are. And then he would scream over--on top of his lung."
SPENCER MICHELS: He screamed at yo over and over?
SYLVIA KIM: Yes. I was trying to get away from him But he came back, you know, behind me and then said--repeated the same thing and then grabbed me and just threw me down.
SPENCER MICHELS: Mrs. Kim was severely injured. Police never found the assailant but classified the attack as a hate crime.
Several circumstances have led to the rise in violence.
Such anti-Asian incidents increased 17 percent last year over the previous year, according to a new report by the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. The report also charges that in the last year hate crimes increased against Asian-American political candidates and college students campaigning against Proposition 209-- California's ban on affirmative action.
In addition, the report cites national controversies over campaign contributions, immigration, welfare, and affirmative action as spurring some officials to use racially divisive rhetoric. The report faults the media for so-called anti-Asian graphics like this one in the National Review. The findings come at a time when immigration generally has become a hot political issue. Projections are that the percentage of Asians in the U.S. population will increase from 3.6 percent in 1995 to 4.7 percent by 2005. In California, Asians make up more than 10 percent of the population, and the numbers are rising. Gen Fujioka is an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, part of the consortium that prepared the report.
GEN FUJIOKA, Asian Law Caucus: I think that we see periods--and this is one of them--where we see increased anti-immigrant kinds of sentiments that gets manifested as violence.
Anti-Asian bias in housing projects and on college campuses.
SPENCER MICHELS: Fujioka has gathered evidence, including these pictures, with anti-Asian graffiti, to support one key allegation of the report, that violence against Asians has substantially increased in public housing. This is the Alice Griffith project in San Francisco--for years known as "The Killing Zone" because of the violence. Recently it has been spruced up. But just three months ago, a Vietnamese family left, after reporting a pattern of beatings and harassment. The project had been 9 percent Asian. Now, no Asians live here. Tem Le and Tran Dao and their four children moved half a mile away. They say the intimidation began as soon as they arrived at the project three years ago.
TEM LE: (speaking through interpreter) I was driving home. One of the kids opened the door while I was driving because of the bumps. They opened the door, and another kid threw a bottle, hitting my head. And I managed to close the door, and I ran home. As I got out of the car, a bunch of kids came throwing rocks and bottles at me, hitting my head. I was knocked unconscious.
SPENCER MICHELS: But at the housing project, which is populated mostly by African Americans, the allegations of racism are roundly denied. These residents--who didn't want their names used--say the Vietnamese just wanted an excuse to get better housing.
MAN: Those people are lying. Did they go to the hospital? I mean, you know, those people are lying. They're fabricating that story, man.
SPENCER MICHELS: You don't think there's really any antagonism between the races in the housing project?
ANOTHER MAN: They don't even come outside half the time. Them people don't even socialize. I mean, you know, you never see them.
SPENCER MICHELS: The report on anti-Asian violence charges that police and housing authorities, as well as neighbors, often want to deny that incidents are, in fact, racial.
GEN FUJIOKA: There's a tendency in general to deny these incidents are occurring. I think most people don't want to accept the fact that there is this kind of racism that's out there, that maybe it's their neighbors that are, in fact, responsible for these kinds of incidents.
SPENCER MICHELS: The report also shows a dramatic rise in the number of anti-Asian incidents on college campuses and in schools, as well as at businesses owned by Asians.


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