Racism still endangers Asian American women: USA Today

NEW YORK -- A year after the Atlanta spa shootings, misogynistic racism still endangers Asian American women in the United States, an opinion piece published on USA Today has said.

Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed in three shootings at massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 16, 2021.

The shootings came as anti-Asian hate crimes were on the rise during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These shootings, and the surge of hate crimes targeting Asian American women, are inseparable from the centuries of anti-Asian and anti-women violence that put the shooter's finger on the trigger, Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, said on Monday.

Asian American women "continue to be degraded, fetishized and victimized as a result of centuries-old stereotypes," said Choimorrow, who has grown up near a US military base in South Korea.

Around 74 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander women said they have experienced racism or discrimination in the previous 12 months, she said, citing a recent survey by the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, a progressive advocacy and community-organizing group.

More than half of respondents identified a stranger as the perpetrator, and 47 percent reported experiencing racism and discrimination in a public space, according to the survey.

Choimorrow called on the US state and federal governments to mobilize more resources in preventing anti-Asian hate crimes, not just addressing them after they occur.