Asian Women Are Not an Abstraction
The Atlanta massacre has laid bare the fear and frustration Asian women have always felt
(L to R) Yong Yue, Xiaojie Tan, Suncha Kim, Hyun Jung Kim, four of six Asian women killed in the Atlanta massage parlor shooting
On Tuesday night, eight people were shot and killed in a shooting rampage that targeted three Asian-owned massage parlors in the Atlanta area. Of those murdered, six were Asian women. Their names are Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Sun Cha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue.
The suspect, a 21-year-old white male named Robert Aaron Long, was apprehended and taken into custody on Wednesday morning. Details have emerged that Long may have been a patron of these businesses in the past, and claimed that his decision to attack these locations was motivated by an ostensible desire to eliminate sources of temptation for his sex addiction.
This massacre comes at a time when violence against Asian Americans is at an historic peak: since the pandemic began just one year ago, over 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian harassment, verbal and physical assault, and discrimination have been reported on the platform Stop AAPI Hate. The latest wave of attacks has targeted Asian seniors in particular, among whom several, including 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, Pak Ho, and Juanito Falcon, died as a result of their injuries.
30-year-old Angelo Quinto was strangled to death when a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 5 minutes.
In recent months, our community has also witnessed high-profile police killings of two unarmed Asian American men. Angelo Quinto, a 30-year-old Filipino-American Navy vet, died in front of his family when an Antioch police officer knelt on his neck for almost five minutes. 19-year-old Christian Hall, a Chinese-American adoptee, was shot seven times with his hands up on a bridge in Pennsylvania. Both were in the midst of mental health crises and were met not with compassion and aid, but with swift brutality.
19-year-old Christian Hall (R) was shot by police seven times with his hands in the air.
But within the ongoing trend of hate crimes and hate incidents, Asian American women have borne the brunt of anti-Asian bias and discrimination, making up 68% of respondents on Stop AAPI Hate. Some cases are more extreme than others: earlier this month, an Asian American woman in San Jose was sexually assaulted and called an ethnic slur.
Outrage over the Atlanta massage parlor massacre and local law enforcement’s equivocation over whether or not this was a hate crime, has coalesced and mobilized people of all backgrounds to an astonishing degree. Among those in dismay are individuals within the Asian community who have historically been less engaged on racial justice issues. Right now, Asian Americans and allies are expressing rage, grief, and a desire to be part of the solution in a way I’ve never seen before.
As an Asian American woman working in the social justice space, I have long feared that an event like the Atlanta shooting could take place. When the first upsurge in anti-Asian hate incidents started over one year ago, the specter of a mass shooting targeting Asians already plagued my imagination. I recalled the El Paso shooting in 2019, in which a 22-year-old white man drove over 10 hours to shoot up a Walmart, killing 22 people, the majority of whom were of Mexican descent. And the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2018, when a shooter opened fire at a majority Latino crowd at a gay club, killing fifty. As these memories converged, I began having nightmares of a shooter opening fire on the local Asian supermarket where my parents get their groceries. For many in my line of work, it was not a matter of if, but when.
I’ve been comforted, moved, and pleasantly surprised to see allies across communities of color coming together in support of our community, hoisting up the banner of #StopAsianHate. Yet, this reactivity to the Atlanta shootings, when lumped together with the COVID-related attacks on our community this past year, feels insufficient to address the larger structural and cultural forces that have made Asian Americans, especially poor and working-class Asian women and LGBTQ+ folks, especially vulnerable to violence.
Ad for “The Chinese Lady” (circa 1835)
The Atlanta shooting seemed less a direct culmination of the anti-Asian hate brought on by the former president’s xenophobic rhetoric around COVID-19 (though there is no denying the correlation). More so, it was a combination of present-day policy failures colliding into a centuries-old history of anti-Asian xenophobia, Western imperialism, white nationalism, and misogyny that until now, we had not reckoned with.
In fact, the bodies of Asian women throughout history have been policed, exploited, and treated as depersonalized objects in service to white supremacist and imperialist narratives and orientalist fantasies. Afong Moy, the first known Asian woman to immigrate to the United States, was brought over in 1834 by merchants Francis and Nathaniel G. Carnes, as part of an exhibit called “The Chinese Lady”, a gimmick to help market their “exotic” goods. Afong was paraded around for American audiences to gaze on her 4-inch long bound feet, 4’0” stature, and “unusual” dress. She would later become one of P.T. Barnum’s acts, the subject of white nativist fear and ridicule, and a propaganda tool for anti-Chinese movements.
And while some people know about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, few are aware that the first Asian exclusion came about with the Page Act of 1875, which banned immigration of Asian women for their alleged proclivity for engaging in prostitution, spreading sexually transmitted diseases, and threatening the virtues of white Christian men. This reason, however, also belied the desire of policymakers to prevent Asian men from settling permanently in the U.S. by depriving them of women with whom they could marry and start families, while continuing to enforce anti-miscegenation laws.
A Korean war vet and his wife, 1951
On top of that, each transpacific conflict the U.S. has engaged in has brought Asian war brides from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines home along with military servicemen. Whether or not these women had worked as sex workers in American military camps, many had witnessed or experienced sexual trauma in their countries, and they were often stigmatized in the States, a reminder to white Americans of the bitter losses incurred during overseas conflict.
As Asian women, our admissibility into this country has historically been premised upon whether our bodies would serve to uphold a vision of the United States as a nation for white, capitalist, Protestant men. These ideas have existed for centuries, since the dawn of European exploration, yet it manifests still today, in dating apps, in public parks, from backstages to boardrooms.
In my life, I have been called Lucy Liu, Ching Chong, or Chung Li far too many times to count. I’ve been groped and grabbed in public while being called those names, followed by men yelling “me love you long time” or outright soliciting me for sexual services. One individual began masturbating in public while staring at me and calling me “China Doll”. I’ve found the words “chink bitch” spray-painted in front of my building, next to a circular face with two angry slits for eyes. And while I cannot presume to know the life of a massage worker, I have been harassed, stalked, and fetishized as an Asian female performer with no institutional protection against predatory individuals, and even still, my experience likely pales in comparison to the sort of hardship experienced by the women working at Gold Spa and Young’s Asian Massage.
“I have been called Lucy Liu, Ching Chong, or Chung Li far too many times to count...followed by men yelling “me love you long time” or outright soliciting me for sex. One individual began masturbating in public while staring and calling me “China Doll”. I’ve found the words ‘chink bitch’ spray-painted in front of my building, next to a circular face with two angry slits for eyes.”
The shooter’s scapegoating of these Asian women for his own sex addiction is the result of stereotypes of Asian women as being exotic, submissive, and sexually deviant, and at the same time, faceless and anonymous. This, compounded by the perception that we are less likely to fight back and that factors like language barriers or immigration status may inhibit our ability to report such crimes, means that women of Asian descent have always dealt with a particular anxiety and vulnerability when it comes to our bodily safety, however conscious or subliminal. We live with a target on our backs. To people like Robert Aaron Long, we are not people, but an idea, a drug for consumption both violently desired and despised.
It’s important to name the victims of the Atlanta shootings. It’s also important to name the racism and misogyny that Asian women face in the United States, recognizing that histories of sexual violence are common in our families’ countries of origin. It’s critical for us to state that we are not simply empty canvasses upon which to project other people’s misdirected blame for COVID; their resistance to demographic and societal change; their sexual fears and fantasies; their blame for job losses and the economy.
This moment also presents an opportunity for the Asian American community to channel our collective anger towards building political power and working towards policy change, just as we did in 1982 following the murder of Vincent Chin. We need to go beyond calling for justice and solidarity in this one instance to move the conversation to solutions that would improve the lives of Asian Americans and other communities of color.
Anti-Asian racism, sexism, and violence are not new, but fortunately, neither are the ideas and movements that seek to dismantle white supremacist and misogynist violence. For both Asian Americans and non-Asians looking to support these movements at this time, #StopAsianViolence means honoring the memories of Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Sun Cha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue, AND calling for:
Immigration reform and immigrant rights. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing undocumented population, and in many places like New York City, have among the highest rates of deportation. Fighting for state-level sanctuary policies like universal representation, closing ICE detention facilities, and prohibiting cooperation between ICE and other government agencies meant to serve and protect immigrant communities, including women who are victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Support bills like the New Way Forward Act, which seeks to decriminalize migration, especially among Southeast Asian communities where we see higher rates of poverty and incarceration.
Yang Song, a Chinese sex worker in Flushing who died during a vice sting. She was 38.
Policing reform and alternatives, including defunding law enforcement in favor of social service and peacekeeping interventions. This is not just for Angelo Quinto and Christian Hall, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (whose families are still seeking justice), but also for wage-earning women like Yang Song, a Chinese-American sex worker who fell to her death in Flushing in 2017 while running from the Queens police in a vindictive vice sting after Song reported that she had been raped by an officer from her local precinct.
Supporting low-wage workers, including domestic workers, massage workers, sex workers, and food delivery workers, who are especially vulnerable to violence and abuse. Fight for the $15 minimum wage and the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act. Decriminalize sex work to help protect women like Yang Song and others who deserve dignity and protection, including from the police.
Increased funding, donations, and volunteers for Asian-serving nonprofits, many of which have the cultural competency and trust of the community to provide mental health services, victim assistance, and legal referrals for people who have been targets of hate crimes. Many are under-resourced, and in need of financial and in-kind support to meet the mounting demands of this fast-growing population. They are also the ones doing ongoing advocacy work and organizing rallies, marches, and vigils for the community, oftentimes unfunded and working with largely part-time or volunteer staff.
Ethnic studies and racial sensitivity curriculum in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. The histories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian immigrants -- the good, the bad, the complex relationships we’ve had with the U.S. government and other racialized communities -- MUST BE TAUGHT as part of standard curriculum so that our lives and contributions can be recognized.
Gun safety policies. This needs little explanation. Long may not have used a semiautomatic weapon to commit this heinous crime, but plenty have. And there are many states that still don’t have background checks or extreme risk protection orders that would prevent people with histories of severe mental health issues and/or domestic abuse from owning firearms.
Cross-racial solidarity, now and always. For Asian Americans, #StopAsianHate also means remembering this moment when we felt targeted, attacked, and condemned the next time there is a police shooting of another unarmed Black person, another crackdown on immigrants whether from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, or Asia, another mass shooting targeting a mosque, synagogue, or Black church. Reverend Al Sharpton and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, were at the press conference linking arms with Christian Hall’s bereaved parents. The family of Oscar Grant stood by Angelo Quinto’s family at the press conference announcing their wrongful death lawsuit against Antioch police. Show up for our siblings in the struggle, no matter who, no matter when.
In this moment, Asian Americans, and Asian American women in particular, are done with being treated as abstractions, even in our victimhood and grief over the six lives taken on March 16th. Our response to anti-Asian violence must therefore be anything but abstract. It’s going to take more than calling for an end to anti-Asian sentiment; it’s going to take all of us calling out the ways in which our system has failed to protect the most vulnerable among us, and, piece by piece, policy by policy, begin to dismantle that system in the name of radical liberation for all.
WAYS TO #STOPASIANHATE and help the victims and families of the Atlanta shooting victims.
If you’d like to help the families of the Atlanta shooting victims, please consider donating to and sharing the following:
If you’d like to donate to organizations working on community responses in Atlanta, start by supporting:
If you’d like to support working women in unregulated and low-wage industries:
If you’d like to learn skills for intervening in the event of anti-Asian harassment:
