Demonstrations protesting violence against Asian Americans erupted in multiple cities on Wednesday after a shooting in Atlanta killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women.
In Washington, DC, about 200 people congregated in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood. Protesters held a vigil and marched and sang through the city, with signs that read “Asian Lives Matter” and more.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC: protesters have gathered in Chinatown to #StopAsianHate pic.twitter.com/KThNMDRVgJ
– philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 17, 2021
The #StopAsianHate protest organized by @tlcollectivec is on the move. It has left Penn Quarter and is now in the convention center at 9th & NY NW.@ wusa9 pic.twitter.com/XGiiySZm9R
– John Henry (@JohnHenryWUSA) March 18, 2021
“I’m angry. I’m furious,” Janet Namkung, who attended the vigil, told NBC4 in Washington. “I know people who have been called all kinds of insults because they fear for their street life every day.”
In New York City, hundreds of people gathered in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City, an area home to a large Asian-American population, to hold a vigil and demonstrate against a spike in violence against Asian Americans, The reported. New York Times.
Group members held candles and held tears in speeches, according to the Times, in addition to reciting “Stop the hatred.”
Angélica Acevedo, a reporter in the area, shared photos and video of the vigil on Twitter.
Dozens gathered at Diversity Plaza tonight to mourn the 8 victims, 6 of whom were Asian-American women, of last night’s mass shooting in Atlanta, and to condemn the wave of anti-Asian hate crimes. pic.twitter.com/VJ4soNwEo2
– Angélica M. Acevedo (@ angacevedo15) March 18, 2021
Chuck Park, a Jackson Heights resident, said he fears for his family. He spoke of his parents, who had owned a shop on 74th St for 35 years, who came home with stories of abuse.
Park also brought flowers for people to share with sex workers and small business owners in the area. pic.twitter.com/sLKMOspQrw
– Angélica M. Acevedo (@ angacevedo15) March 18, 2021
In Atlanta, memorials were erected outside the massage parlors where the shootings took place earlier this week, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
In Cherokee County, Georgia, resident Cindy Anderson placed a plant outside one of the massage parlors, Youngs Asian Massage, and told the paper that the deaths in the shooting “weighed on her heart.”
“They’re our neighbors and they deserved better than this,” she said through tears. “These people just came to work yesterday, just like every day of the week.”
Atlanta police said on Wednesday it was too early to determine whether the shootings in the city’s massage parlors were a hate crime.
The suspected gunman, Robert Aaron Long, who is white, claimed the attacks were not racially motivated according to authorities, adding that the 21-year-old suspect said he has a “sexual addiction.”
A recent survey from California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that hate crimes against Asian Americans in 16 of the country’s largest cities rose nearly 150 percent in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.
The nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate said Tuesday that it has received nearly 3,800 reports of hate speech incidents against Asian Americans in the past year.
President Biden
Joe Biden The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented By Facebook – Forget Comity In Congress Boundary Rise Breaks Senate Immigration Debate GOP Looks At Measures Preventing Trans Athletes From Rallying Voters MORE last week condemned “cruel hate crimes” against communities in Asia-America and the Pacific during a primetime speech to mark the first anniversary of US pandemic restrictions
‘It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it has to stop, ”Biden said.