As the world opens back up, many travelers are eager to get back on the road, but Asian Americans may have some additional baggage after more than a year-and-a-half of attacks on their community.
“Before the pandemic, I had no problem really going out and traveling,” said Hana Lee, a Korean American from Colorado Springs. “It was just fun.”
She said the first time she felt targeted for her ethnicity was on a recent trip to New York, when a stranger called her “a Chinese cockroach” and took her photo, which she said made her “very uncomfortable.”
“I was shocked, but at the same time … this unfortunately is normal for people like me these days,” she said.
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“This feeling of having a loss of sense of safety is such a violation,” said Cynthia Choi, Co-Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a founding partner of Stop AAPI Hate. “It’s such a basic human right to feel like you can leave your home and not be subjected to discrimination, to hate.”
Attacks on Asian Americans
Stop AAPI Hate received more than 6,600 reports of hate incidents from mid-March 2020 to late March 2021 – ranging from verbal harassment to civil liberties violations and physical assault – as China was blamed for COVID-19.
“We believe it’s an undercount,” Choi said. “Our reporting center is the canary in the coal…
