by Kate Alison Boyore
Oblivious to the oncoming danger, Noel Quintana, 61, was minding his business on his way to work, sitting innocently inside a Manhattan-bound subway train when he was slashed from ear to ear with a box-cutter.
Quintana is just one among the many victims of the recent surge of Asian hate-motivated assaults which now terrorize members of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community in the United States.
Quintana’s case started with a seemingly meaningless taunt from his assailant when, prior to the incident, the man started kicking the bag in Quintana’s hand.
“He started kicking my bag, actually it’s a tote bag, and I don't see any reason why [he kicked it] because I don't think it even touches him or somet
hing,” Quintana said in his interview with ABS-CBN News.
The man provided no clue as to why he acted that way towards Quintana who took little notice of the man’s malicious intent.
“And when I said, ‘what’s wrong with you?’, and I moved away from him, that's when he slashed me,” he said.
Still shaken from the sudden attack, Quintana did not immediately realize the gravity of the situation. The stunned faces of fellow commuters in front of him threw him off and he realized something was extremely wrong. Blood pooled in his hands when he touched the side of his face. All the while he thought he was just punched.
While his assailant escaped, Quintana was left to deal with his injuries alone, bleeding profusely inside the subway car. With no one willing to help, he rushed into the station and sought assistance from an attendant who called 911 for help.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is working with the community to find the assailant who is still at-large with a reward of up to $2,500.00 according to their Twitter post. Quintana expressed his want for a prompt arrest of the assailant and implored that authorities should do more for a safer city.
Asian-Americans-and-Pacific-Islanders-Hate Crimes Report
The national coalition Stop AAPI Hate recorded 3,795 reports of incidents from March 19, 2020 to February 28 of this year, highlighting how the hate against AAPI communities has risen during the pandemic.
Such terror has greatly affected the involved communities, making them terrified of simple activities like walking the streets or going outside their homes, especially after an Asian hate incident on the streets of California on the noon of Monday, March 16.
The Asian Man who Just Went to Lunch
Just like Quintana, Danny Yu Chang, 59, was minding his own business while walking on the streets of San Francisco’s Financial District. He was going back to work on his lunch break, carrying a packaged lunch from Trader Joe’s, when he was pushed, knocked unconscious, and assaulted by 32-year-old Jorge Devis-Milton, who was arrested later on.
“All this hatred of Asian Americans, I don’t know why it’s happening, but it’s got to stop,” Yu Chang told the San Francisco Chronicle through a phone call.
According to a news report from Media, Entertainment, Arts, WorldWide (MEAWW), Yu Chang was severely injured – his face fractured, his hands scraped, and his eyelids bruised and swollen shut.
After the incident, Yu Chang, who grew up in the Philippines, voiced out his desire to move out of California because he realized that it was not an ideal living area for old people like him, especially with the rising count of Asian hate crimes. He posted a donation drive page on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to ask for help from the global online community to help him and his wife move out of the state.
“Nothing is safe here in California. Especially for the old people,” Yu Chang concluded.
His GoFundMe page raised $82,105.00, which well-exceeded the $50,000 goal before Yu Chang deactivated the fundraiser.
Asian Hate and Asian Racism Intensifies
Several other known incidents include the death of a Thai man Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, who, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, died two days after he was pushed head-first to the pavement while he was walking in San Francisco’s Anza Vista neighborhood.
Another is the Seattle Church parking lot vandalization which contained the phrases cursing China and telling Asians to go home.
The most (in)famous today, perhaps, is what happened the day after Yu Chang’s assault case: eight people were murdered in a killing-spree in three spas within the Atlanta metropolitan area. Six of them were Asian American women.
The authorities charged Robert Aaron Long, 21, with eight counts of murder. Long later said that he committed the murders because he had a sexual addiction, and that he did what he did in an attempt to extinguish his temptations.
Despite his statement denying that the crime was biased on racial basis, the Asian community and its supporters believed otherwise.
“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian. We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable, it is hateful and it has to stop,” Atlanta Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, told the New York Times.
Enduring Asian Racism Amid Global Crises
The TIME Magazine asserted that former US President Donald Trump, “has helped normalize anti-Asian xenophobia, stoking public hysteria and racist attacks,” through his choice of words to describe Covid-19. Some of his terms include “Chinese virus” and “kung flu” which misled racist aggressors to put the blame on the Chinese.
However, since the perpetrators do not or cannot differentiate the different ethnic groups, any Asian, or even anyone who is perceived to be Asian, can be a victim.
With the rise of Asian Hate crimes and offenses, the Philippine Embassy in the US advised Filipinos “to exercise utmost caution in view of these incidents.”
Amid all this fear and antagonism, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and all Asians who face the dangers of being targeted with racial slurs, attacks, and crimes continue to confront the daily challenges brought by the pandemic.
They are forced to endure undeserved hate while still going about their day-to-day routines. However, when simply going on a subway train to work, eating out for lunch, or even just walking on the street leaves them terrified, it remains difficult to see which task is normal and which endangers their lives.
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