Asian American elected officials talk about the wave of hate crimes

New York, like other parts of the country, has seen an increase in hate crimes and bias incidents targeting Asian Americans. Last month, a clip of a woman being violently shoved to the ground in Flushing went viral, but that was reportedly only one of four attacks against Asian American women in the city that day. It isn‘t known how many other attacks fly under the radar, because many victims don’t feel comfortable coming forward to report. 

A number of factors are driving the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes: the pandemic, a slumped economy, Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric surrounding the coronavirus and Asian Americans being labeled as “perpetual foreigners,” to name a few. There have also been a number of solutions put forward to better support victims and prevent these acts from happening, but lawmakers and community advocates acknowledge there’s still more work to be done.

City & State spoke to several downstate Democratic Asian American lawmakers about their experiences of this crisis, their past experiences of racism on the job and their upcoming policy proposals for protecting their communities. Below are condensed and edited responses from Assembly Members Yuh-Line Niou and Ron Kim, state Sens. John Liu and Kevin Thomas, and Rep. Grace Meng.

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