NEW YORK (Reuters) – After eight people were killed in last week’s shootings at three Atlanta-area spas, including six women of Asian descent, Stefany Stuber sat down to talk to her seven-year-old daughter, Olivia.
“I really felt like this was a time for me to speak up and address the situation, address the fact that this has been happening forever, forever and a day,” said bartender Stuber, a 40-year-old Korean-American who lives in Philadelphia.
Olivia was attentive and receptive, her mother recalled, and as children often do, peppered her with difficult questions.
“She asked me why somebody would hurt people just because they were Asian,” Stuber said. “Would somebody want to hurt me just because the way that I look?”
Across the United States, Asian-Americans and Asians reeled at the news of the shooting spree. here Authorities said the 21-year-old white male suspect told them he had a sex addiction and that the attacks may not have had a racist motivation.
But after a year in which reports of hate crimes against Asians, regardless of their national origin, skyrocketed, the bloodshed caused more outrage, fear and demands here for a government response.
Rights advocates say the surge, against the background of a long history of…
