During the pandemic, a disturbing number of people in the Asian American Pacific Islander, or AAPI, community have suffered discrimination, harassment and even physical attack.

How is Las Vegas' AAPI community coping?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

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(Kipp Ortenburger) Since the start of the pandemic, nationally the number of hate crimes involving Asian Americans has grown.

According to the group Stop AAPI Hate, there's been a nearly 45% increase in reports of harassment in the last year.

It said most incidents were verbal harassment.

The second-most common involved shunning someone who is Asian American, and the third-most common was physical assault.

Now, many people in the community point to the coronavirus pandemic as the reason for the rise in incidents, but through the tough year, the Las Vegas Asian American Pacific Islander community has shown its resilience.

Joining us to discuss this issue are Marc Matsuo, COO of the Asian Community Resource Center; Elizabeth de Leon-Gamboa, president of the Philippine Nurses Association; Sonny Vinuya, president of the Asian Chamber of Commerce, and Stewart Chang, board president of the Asian Community Development Center.

Well, thank you so much for being here to our viewers, and thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here and talking about this very important issue.

Sonny, I want to start with you, and let's go back a couple months.

A tragic occurrence in Atlanta, three different salons targeted, eight people dead in the mass shooting, six of those Asian American women.

We haven't had necessarily an incident like that here in Las Vegas, but that doesn't mean we haven't had maybe our fair share of incidents.

Can you tell us and give us some insight on what it's been like for the Southern Nevada AAPI community?

(Sonny Vinuya) Kipp, thank you so much for having me.

It's an honor to be here.

Yes, it's true.

We have not had a violent attack as far as my sources from the FBI or Metro has said; however, it's still different because we don't know if there's been any reported or non-reported crimes out there.

That's one of the issues that we have.

Asians don't usually report crimes that way.

But you're absolutely right.

There's a lot of increase in shunning, bad behavior like spitting and a lot of hurtful statements which sometimes, I'm sure, being so involved in this community, being such good contributors in this community especially in the medical industry and education industry, it's hard to take when they know that we've got people who are taking care of their loved ones, and yet we're getting this.

-Yes.

You mentioned the medical industry, and Lisa, I want to go to you.

Let's talk about the healthcare industry.

Of course you're very much engaged in this population; what are you seeing?

What are you hearing?

(Elizabeth de Leon-Gamboa) Right now when I have been talking to my friends and my colleagues in the nursing profession, you know, physically, we have not had any attacks from my sources.

However, you know, there is verbal abuse.

My husband actually, who is a nurse, has experienced it, that one of the patients said I don't want any Filipino nurses taking care of me.

And on that specific day, there were no other nurses but Filipinos.

But even with that they still had to take care of the patient, you know, regardless of the feelings that they had, regardless of the verbal abuse that they've experienced.

-Can you give us some insight in-- I mean, the verbal abuse, you take something like that home to your family, and you're dealing with COVID so a heightened situation all the way around.

And then of course to add to that, you're a frontline worker.

What is that like for that worker and that family?

-Yes.

Well, unfortunately when we have vowed to care for patients, we just set aside our feelings when we're there in the hospital, but then when we go home, we wonder, what have I done wrong?

You know, why is it so different?

Why do they treat me differently if I'm taking care of them?

And then of course that gives us a feeling of heaviness and sadness and anxiety, so what is it going to be like the next day?

Is it going to happen again?

So in the back of our minds, we feel like why are we subjected to that type of verbal abuse when we're here to take care of the patients regardless of any race whether they're white, black, or Asians.

We treat them all fairly.

-And specific to the Filipino nurses, when you're dealing with something that might be, you know, a racial word or slur that's thrown at you, are those kinds of things being reported in the hospital system?

-Usually they talk about it.

They talk to their supervisors.

That's how we normally do it through the chain of command, but then, you know, sometimes we just shrug it off and just carry on with our work.

However, there is an NRS that actually says that if there is assault and battery, you know, that we are protected as healthcare workers.

But for verbal abuse, normally we just carry on with our job.

-Stewart, I want to talk to you about that.

Lisa mentioned this one policy that we have that protects healthcare workers, but what's the knowledge base here, especially in the AAPI community, of knowing that those laws and those protections exist?

(Stewart Chang) Sure.

And that's a huge barrier for the AAPI community, that they don't have a good knowledge base, and in fact, language access is one of the primary barriers too, getting that knowledge that they should be able to report, that there are laws there to protect them.

So if you're talking nationwide, based off of the 2010 census numbers, 34% of the AAPI community is what is called limited English proficient, which means that they cannot speak English at a very well level.

And in a more recent poll that was done by the Pew Research Group, they found that in particular those who are foreign born, so those who are immigrants, 43% of them self-identify as being less than proficient in English.

So if there is that language barrier, and most of the laws are in English, then that is going to be a key factor of underreporting, as Sonny had mentioned, that people are not going to know to call or if they do call, they cannot communicate with the law enforcement officials.

So that is why hopefully one of the things that the ACDC is trying to do is to build a language bank to build language access for the community so we can bridge those language divides between the community and law enforcement or other access to justice.

-And Marc, I want to come to you.

These divides are so important, and just for context, I wanted to mention the AAPI community, we're talking 50 different ethnicities, over 100 different forms of language, so finding a way for translation services or to be able to put some of these materials into multiple languages is a challenge in itself.

How do you overcome that?

(Marc Matsuo) Well, actually it's just being out in the community, grassroots effort.

I agree with Stewart wholly.

You know, you have to understand as well, a lot of these AAPIs come from a country where they're not so trusting of the police.

There's a lot of corruption.

So it becomes a barrier where I don't know if I want to report that to the police because are they going to-- what are they going to do to me, right?

Is the police force corrupted?

So we've been working a lot with Metro as well to try and educate our community; educate not only our community, but we need to educate Metro.

That's something Sonny and I have been working on as well is to educate Metro on what the different ethnicities, how they react to different things, what they're-- you know, what they're kind of going through so they know how to handle the situation a little bit better and report things a little bit better.

-Could I... -Yes, please.

-So another barrier as well is there is a significant portion of the AAPI community that is undocumented, so they equate law enforcement also with immigration and that they could possibly be deported.

So the statistics, there are about 14% of the undocumented population is actually AAPI which is generally not something that we think of when we think of the AAPI community.

-Yes, that's a great point.

-And if I can add to that as well.

-Yes, Sonny.

-Here's the issue.

I mean, there are some people that say hey, you're coming to this country or immigrating here, learn English.

It's easier said than done.

You know, when you first-- it's hard to learn a language, we all know that, and especially when you're not familiar with it.

It's easier for somebody like me because we studied English in the Philippines, but it's not true for every country.

So coming here, remember they have to also work.

They work eight, nine hours a day.

They still have their family, they have their obligations.

Some people, some nurses worked two jobs.

And they'll try their best to learn English, but it's not that fast.

It doesn't work.

And in the business world, there's a lot of people that missed out on a lot of different opportunities only because of the language.

-Lisa, I want to ask you.

Let's go back to the healthcare community, and let's highlight one of the successes, right?

There are a lot of Filipino nurses that we have in Southern Nevada, right?

That is something that your association has made sure that we don't have any gaps there which is a very important thing, particularly when we were confronting a pandemic.

But of course that came before the pandemic and was one of the reasons why we were so supported there.

The transition for those Filipino nurses to come to this country and work, how easy of a transition has that been?

The language barrier is just one of, I would imagine, multiple barriers.

-Yes, it's actually very difficult, you know, transitioning because I, myself, immigrated from the Philippines and coming here, I didn't have the experience, local experience, so that's what they were asking for.

But even before that, I had to take my RN boards in the Philippines, then I had to take that CGFNS and the TOEFL and then the NCLEX.

So we had to go through hoops, you know.

Any foreign-trained nurse has to go through all those testings before they can get a license to practice, so it can be really very difficult.

But with the help of some of our Filipino nurses that have been here prior to us coming in, they kind of take us under their wings and help us through, you know.

-Stewart, I want to come to you again.

Let's talk about some of these unreported hate crimes that have been going on even if it is potentially just, you know, a verbal assault.

It seems like when we're looking at some of the data and the increases we've had in some of these incidences, those that are reported, might be the tip of a much larger iceberg that is this swath of individuals here in Southern Nevada that are going unreported.

What are some of the other barriers other than language that we've already talked about?

-Well, one of them is actually the proving of the racial animus as well.

So we have a lot of new laws coming out; for instance, the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act that President Biden signed which basically mandates the DOJ to expedite review of these COVID-related hate crimes.

And then also one of the other arms of this is it's supposed to facilitate access to justice for victims to hopefully increase reporting and such.

So what a lot of that will need though is a sink of resources, but the question is well, even though there's a sink of resources in reporting and such and into law enforcement, what is the barriers to prove the racial animus that unless there is a racial slur that's there, you won't get the hate crimes augmentation.

So for instance, we saw that horrific incident in New York where a Filipino woman was attacked by African American men.

Well, one of the problems with increasing law enforcement is well, that is also going to increase scrutiny of certain communities that are already over-policed as well.

So if we are sinking more resources into law enforcement, that may also create the same problem; that is, we're going to police more people that are traditionally policed rather than actually looking at the underlying problem which is really white supremacy which it goes hand in hand with.

So, you know, if we think about the South Asian hate movement, it really should go hand in hand with the Black Lives Matter movement because the root of the problem is white supremacy, the belief that whites are better than African Americans, than Asians, than Latinos and such.

So I do think the focus should shift away from sinking more resources into law enforcement and more into addressing the underlying problems.

-Underlying problems, root causes.

Sonny, let me go to you here.

Let's talk specifically about the business community.

Of course you're a leader at one of the local chambers.

We have multiple chambers here and to Stewart's point, coalition building, partnering with the BLM, partnering potentially with the Urban Chamber, what kind of work are the chambers doing here?

-Oh, yes.

We partner with them a lot.

So we work very well with the Latin Chamber and the Urban Chamber.

Of course our main focus is to provide resources for our business owners, especially during the pandemic, and we did that very well.

We were able to give out our own grant money from the County to help support them.

We were able to find resources for them such as the PPP loans and other grants from both the State and County as well to help them really float.

And we've done some-- what do you call this-- we help them out as far as legislation is concerned and some of the causes that they have that really affect their businesses, and now we're trying to help them find more workforce.

So that's one of the issues that we have.

Now, I do want to say when the pandemic first started, our Asian restaurants, specifically Chinese restaurants, were experiencing larger declines in businesses versus the mainstream restaurants.

A lot of that had to do with of course people didn't want to come to Chinese restaurants, and I was very appreciative of some of our leaders here that have really reached out to us and said you know what?

Meet me at a Chinese restaurant.

I'll show people that I'm not scared to go, and that helped.

That really helped out a lot.

-And I mean, it's great that our local leaders have done that.

We do have a lot of public leaders that were using terms like the kung flu, the China flu, things like that.

Marc, I wanted to talk to you.

Impact on public response here locally to those, whether those are national leaders or local leaders, what has it been like?

-Well, you know, we've heard from the community it impacted them quite a bit.

It brought out more racism to me by using this language.

It didn't help the community and, you know, it's unfortunate because regardless of what Asian ethnicity you are, they all pointed to well, you're Chinese, so therefore you brought the virus, you know.

So we've had a lot of issues like that.

We've had a teacher actually, they just got back into class, and four of her students, fifth or sixth graders, said you need to go back to your country, so she was shocked.

She didn't know what to do.

She reported it to the principal, and actually the principal actually shrugged his shoulders and said what do you want me to do about it?

So I mean, we've now started to do some support groups as well to get people to be able to get it off their chest and be able to just vent their anger so they can kind of move past this because, you know, I feel for like the nurses on the front line where they have to go through this day in and day out, and it's terrible.

-Lisa, I want to go to you.

I mean, the important part of this topic of course is that there is a segment of our population that has a firm belief that the virus originated in China, that China is responsible for the spread of the virus itself.

We have those viewers that are watching right now.

What would you like them to take away from this conversation here?

-What I would want everybody, the public, to know is that, you know, even if it originated from there is what we hear all the time in media, you know, we're here for the solution.

What do we do about it, you know, and that's why the Philippine Nurses Association was in the forefront of providing the PPEs.

We've been involved in taking care of the nurses because of their anxiety and depression.

We were involved in collaborating with Massage Envy to give them certificates for relaxation because of the stress that they have gone through.

We've even had a prayer group because, you know, when you cling onto faith and unity, you become stronger.

And then of course right now, we do have our mentorship program, you know, to tell our nurses, you have been through the stress and the trauma of taking care of COVID patients, and sometimes you may not feel appreciated but, you know, you are doing your service, you are giving service.

So for the public, we're here to serve you, and we're all in this together so we want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

You know, we need to remove that train of thought oh, China flu, you know, kung flu, whatever.

Let's forget about that and look at how do we find a solution for it.

That's why, you know, right now we're actively advocating for vaccination.

Our nurses volunteer at the vaccination clinics.

-Stewart, I want to ask you the same question.

For those that share the belief that this is the AAPI community's fault, what is your response to them, those viewers that are watching right now?

-Well, I would say to look into history and see the ways in which this has played out time and time again, that Asian groups have been scapegoated since they first came here in the 19th century.

The first actual federal immigration law ever was targeted at Asians.

They thought Asian women were prostitutes and were spreading venereal diseases.

So for that reason, Congress legislated and said well, let's exclude all Asian women.

And that wasn't enough.

Chinatowns were rife with disease and such so let's also exclude the Chinese, so you have the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

So this is not something that is new, so what we need to do is learn from history.

We need to learn from history that this has occurred before.

The disease, public health, has been used to scapegoat certain groups.

National security has been used to scapegoat the same groups when we had a rash of investigations into professors who were of Chinese background for being spies.

You know, you had the Wen Ho Lee case and such.

You also had the scapegoating of Middle Eastern individuals after 9/11 and the racial profiling that went on after 9/11 and the blame for terrorism of not even just Muslim Americans but also folks that looked Muslim such as the Sikh population who are also Asian.

So we just have to look to history.

We have to look to the ways in which certain demagogues and politicians like former president Trump have used the discourse of division and hate and fear to scapegoat populations for their own political benefit.

-Well, to transition a little bit, AAPI cuisine represents one of the only avenues for many Southern Nevadans to learn and experience some of AAPI culture.

Our Nevada Week team had the opportunity to go to a local family-owned restaurant and learn a little bit more.

Let's take a look.

(Ronnakon Silpasuvun) I think Las Vegas is very culturally diverse for being the small city that it is.

Best place to learn someone else's culture is through their cuisine.

I think regardless of culture or religion that the dining table is a place of bonding.

It's a place where we gather together and are all hospitable to each other.

Ronnakon's father, Archi, often invited his community into his home to his dining table, and he collected recipes along the way.

In 2002 after 18 years of driving a taxi, Archi fulfilled his American dream when he opened his first restaurant in Las Vegas.

Since then he and his family opened four more locations in the city.

(food sizzling) But in 2020 Archi's restaurants received a one-two punch with COVID and its accompanying discrimination against Asian Americans.

It was more apparent in the beginning where we were just finding out where the virus may have been coming from and, you know, with words thrown around like kung flu and China virus.

You'll notice the Chinatown corridor, very empty during those months when usually they don't have enough parking.

So I think we've kind of evolved and progressed away from that on the business front.

Customers are coming back in.

We've got 100% capacity.

They want to come in and eat but, you know, I'm not alone in that.

A lot of people are having issues finding people to fill the payroll.

So that is a huge challenge besides all the other things with supply chain and everything else that came along with the pandemic.

As Archi's Thai and Las Vegas as a whole work to get back to business, the city's Asian Americans must also battle back from the discrimination they faced since the start of the pandemic.

Ronnakon says the Las Vegas community can help support their efforts.

Viruses don't discriminate, so I don't think people should discriminate either.

Besides that, what would be supportive is, you know, just support your Asian American business owners and get back to work because we're hiring.

Ronnakon says Archi's Thai will continue to remodel and expand locations and add new ones in the future.

For Nevada Week, I'm Heather Caputo.

Thank you, Heather, we really appreciate it.

And Sonny, we've had you on the show before and we've talked about this, the mix of business, culture and cuisine is so important, but let's talk about this a little bit deeper.

How are those three together a stepping stone to build more tolerance and understanding in AAPI culture here?

-Sure.

I think it starts with our own community.

You know, like you mentioned earlier, we are so diverse.

There are 48 different countries, 13 different islands under AAPI.

We are now living here as one, and Chinatown is the perfect example for that.

We need to create our own cultural unity here.

That's us living together, looking out for one another, uplifting the whole community and showing to everybody that we're here.

We belong.

We're great contributors to this community and share our culture.

-And Marc, we've got about a minute left, and what a great way to end our show here.

I mean, let's talk about some of the successes, and one of those is unity and how the AAPI community has come together.

So many wonderful organizations around our table now.

Tell us a little bit about that.

-Yes, we love to collaborate with other organizations like Sonny says, and we work closely with the Asian Chamber.

We work with the Vietnamese community, the Thai community, Laos community, the Korean community, you name it, you know.

So I really believe that we as a community, as Asians need to get together, need to work together, need to help each other.

For a long time we've been separated in our own little silos doing our own little things, but we really need to start working together.

-Well, thank you so much.

We really appreciate this conversation.

Thank you.

(all) Thank you.

Thank you as always for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

Now, for any of the resources discussed on the show, visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevada-week.

You can also always find us on social media at @nevadaweek.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.

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