An attendee identified as Emily, left, holds a candle during a candlelight vigil for Michelle Go at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022.
Stephen Lam | Getty Images
Sometime after ក្រុមហ៊ុន Deloitte consultant Michelle Go was shoved to her death underneath a moving R train in January, another New York City resident swore off taking the subway.
Instead of taking the No. 6 train to her desk at ធនាគារ Dime in midtown Manhattan, the woman, an Asian American manager in her late 30s, walks to work. The fear she can’t quite shake, she said, is that she will be alone on a platform with an unhinged person, and she will suffer the same fate as 40-year-old Go.
“You don’t feel like the city cares or is willing to do anything about it,” said the woman, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “You don’t feel safe. I don’t want to be the next headline, so I walk.”
One of the many things lost since the coronavirus pandemic began more than two years ago is a sense of safety in public spaces. Asian Americans have felt that loss more acutely because of a surge in bias incidents. There have been 10,905 instances reported by Asian American and Pacific Islanders from the start of the pandemic through the end of 2021, according to advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.
Women account for 62% of reported incidents, according to Stop AAPI Hate, which was created in early 2020 to document the surge in Covid-related harassment and violence.
As employers — especially those in financial services, consulting and law — attempt once again to summon workers back to offices this year, a sense of dread is common among AAPI women, according to Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation.
“As the city started to open up, I’ve had so many conversations: ‘I’m expected to be at work, and I’m scared. I’m scared to ride the subway,’ ” Yoo said.
Random brutality
Then, after ប្រាំបីនាក់ were murdered in an Atlanta area shooting spree in March 2021 — most of them female AAPI spa employees — the worrisome trend gained national attention. While the incidents helped galvanize a ជំនាន់ថ្មី of activists, more attacks would follow. Weeks after Go’s death in January, Christina Yuna Lee, a 35-year-old creative producer, was ចាក់ to death in her Chinatown apartment.
Then in March, seven AAPI women were រំលោភ during a two-hour spree in Manhattan. Sixty-one-year old GuiYing Ma, who had been hit in the head with a rock while sweeping her sidewalk in Queens, ចុះចាញ់ to her injuries and died. And a 67-year-old Yonkers woman was pummeled ដង 125 in the head in the vestibule of her apartment building.
The attacks brought national attention to AAPI concerns for the first time in decades: Senseless, seemingly random murders and assaults on women like in these incidents amount to evidence of racial and gender bias that is hard to dispute.
“This is a bittersweet time, because our issues are finally getting some attention,” said Cynthia Choi, a San Francisco-based activist who co-founded Stop AAPI Hate. “There is a part of me that’s like, ‘Why do Asian women have to die for us to take these issues seriously?’ “
Chinese for Affirmative Action co-executive director Cynthia Choi speaks during a press conference with Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Bay Area Asian American and Pacific Islander community leaders amid the rise in racist attacks across the country, on March 19, 2021, in San Francisco, Calif.
Dai Sugano | Medianews Group | Getty Images
The biggest category of incidents tracked by Stop AAPI Hate involve verbal harassment (67%), while the second largest involves physical assault (16%). Roughly half occur in public spaces, including in the street, mass transit and parks, according to the organization.
“We have to recognize that we have a problem with street harassment and violence against women,” said Choi. “This is something we have to navigate from very early on. What’s perhaps different is the unprecedented levels of hate, based on our race or gender, or both, that’s been exacerbated by Covid-19.”
More than 70% of Asian Americans បានស្ទង់មតិ។ by the Pew Research Center last month said they worry that they may be threatened or attacked because of their ethnicity, and most of those surveyed said that anti-AAPI violence was increasing.
`Even in broad daylight’
“I never felt scared in Manhattan before the attacks,” she added.
The AAPI attacks are also part of a larger story of American violence. Last year, 12 cities set កំណត់ត្រាថ្មី for murders. In the past two weeks alone, a ក្រុមហ៊ុន Goldman Sachs employee was murdered in broad daylight on the subway, 10 people were shot to death in a racially-motivated attack in a Buffalo supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers were murdered in the mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.
‘Hard to go back’
As a result, just 8% of Manhattan office workers are back full time, according to the Partnership for New York City. Employers have begrudgingly adopted the hybrid work model, resulting in 38% of employees being at the office on the average weekday.
But that means that the city’s subways are still ល្អនៅខាងក្រោម pre-pandemic ridership levels, which contributes to safety concerns, she said.
“The city’s not as safe as it used to be,” the Dime executive said. “If it’s nighttime, I’m taking an Uber, that’s all there is to it.”
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/as-employers-call-workers-back-to-the-office-some-aapi-women-worry-.html