Asian-Americans in New York Respond to More Policing in their Communities
New York City saw a 13.62 % increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans and 164% nationwide since March 19, 2020. Women are 2.3 times more likely to be attacked than men.
After the fatal shooting in Atlanta, on March 16, 2021, among the 8 women killed, 6 were women of Asian descent, state officials around the country came out and stood in solidarity with the Asian community.
The New York City Mayor responded to the shooting in Atlanta and the rise in hate crimes towards Asian-Americans with more police presence in the Asian communities. Mayors in San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland also responded the same way.
“We’re going to continue to build up NYPD presence in our Asian communities to provide support, to provide protection, to provide reassurance to Asian-American New Yorkers,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a press conference on March 22.
“The city government and de Blasio administration is responding to the genuine concerns and inciting fear that had been raised among Asian American community, with more and more media reports of violent attacks against Asian Americans,” said Professor Sumie Okazaki of Applied Psychology in NYU. “I think there are probably symbolic values to that. Just seeing police on the streets or police cars patrolling the streets may make some Asian Americans feel like their concerns are being seen and heard.”
She also said that the support for more police officers in Asian communities would be divided since most of them are immigrants and have different experiences with law enforcement from their country and here in New york.
Dao Yi Chow, a 47-year-old Chinese American, does not want more police in his community because he says it will create a divide Between the Asian and black communities. “I mean, it’s a sort of a natural response to send in more police. Most of the time, that’s not the answer because you know, the same people who are in support of over-policing and keeping a carceral stay, within our communities are the ones that are, you know, dividing the communities in the first place,”
Chow’s mom, now 76, who immigrated to the U.S. from China, was one day traveling to Atlantic City with his dad and she was pulled off the bus by the New Jersey police officers and arrested and kept in jail overnight. No charges were made against her and she was let go the next day.
Chow said he is a victim of police brutality but did not want to go into detail about his experience. “I mean, I think if you live in this country and you haven’t, you’re either white, or you are extremely lucky,” Chow said. Chow had led protests against Asian hate crimes in solidarity with activists from the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Andrew Yang, an Asian-American, calls for more funding for the NYPD Asian Hate Crime Task Force after the Atlanta shooting and the rise in hate crimes in New York City. Yang is running in the 2021 mayoral election of New York.
“I think what people think, Mayors and politicians, when they think to solve a problem, is more policing. But that’s not; it’s not useful in the sense that the issue is bigger than just, individual scapegoating,” said Yung-Yi Diana Pan, associate professor from the Sociology Department at Brooklyn College. “So I do not think that the answer is to have increased policing. If we really do care about the rise of anti-Asian violence, then we need to think more strategically about what might work.”
Both professor Pan and Suzie said that in order to address the hate crimes against Asian-Americans one has to look at the historical racism in the United States towards Asians.
“I think this violence is happening, not just because they’re individual hate incidents, but it’s because there’s a lot of historical and contemporary factors contributing to the rise in violence among the most vulnerable populations,” said professor Okazaki.
