Recently, the US media is constantly reporting the Atlanta Shooting that targeted a spa and killed 8 victims, 6 of which were Asian women. The immediate response we got from the police spokesperson, Captain Baker, from Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said that the perpetrator said his act had nothing to do with racism and he had a sexual addiction, while also described a white male shooter that he had a bad day. Later, the police responded that Baker was actually quoting the shooter and not describing the situation with his opinion. Though we might argue that this could have or could not have anything to do with racism towards Asian American and Pacific Islander community (AAPI) especially after the pandemic hit last year, the proof that the shooter specifically targeted Asian Spa said otherwise. Asian community, in general, have been facing a long history of racism, which most of the time overlooked. Asian community have always been depicted as minority model, being described as smart, successful, and high income group of people, which make immigrants that work with day to day wages invisible. Franklin Roosevelt, one of the most praised president of the US through his Executive Order established incarceration called Japanese internment camps, where Japanese descent were treated badly, and some even decided to move back to Japan. Most that decided to stay came back to their homes later to find out that all their property were taken away and given to what so called "Americans". In 1988, President Reagan officially apologized for the internment and granted compensation about $20000 for each surviving internee.
But, why the women? Just like any other oppressed and targeted minority in US, it always has to do with history. Asian women, specifically, are the most sexualized and fetishized group of people among any others. Asian women are often described as submissive, quiet, and open to engage in any forms of sexual activity. These depictions have been smeared through stereotyped role capturing Asian women as exotic and a form of commodity. But, this just a layer of the continuous racism towards Asian women.
When we talk about structural racism, we need to look back to 1875 Page Act about the ban of the Chinese immigration, in which described as an act to "end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women". Immoral Chinese women were referring to Chinese women sexual workers. If you open Wikipedia page about the Page Act, besides finding the explanation about how this came in the first place and later some changes applied, you will also find that the American Medical Association believed that Chinese immigrants "carried distinct germs to which they were immune, but from which whites would die if exposed". This description assumed that Asian women immigrated to the US solely for prostitution. As we fast forward decades later, US military occupation in Asia Pacific, including Japan and Okinawa during World War II and after that, Korea during Korean War and after that, Philippines, and Vietnam during the Vietnam War, also played and was responsible towards this. US military personnel commodified Asian Women during their occupation there, and brought back those fetishes and fantasies back to US.
What is appalling is that we see the pattern, and during Covid-19, we saw what was considered as friendly banter, "kung-flu", perpetuated not just to Chinese American, but also Korean, Nepalese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, Lao, Japanese, Taiwanese, and many other sub-group in AAPI community, but the response was always "we didn't expect this to happen". We also see Asian men go patrolling around Chinatown and any other Asian community area to prevent the racism happen. A mere recognition on how it is going on right now would not only help the AAPI community feel safe, but it could also help to prevent this happen in the first place. Describing this horrific event not as a racism act would also undermine the struggle that Asian American women have been facing all this time.
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