voices voices of Houston
celebrates women’s history.
>> We’ve had 2 mass shootings
in 2 weeks in this country when
in Atlanta killed 8 people.
6 of them were
Asian women that ignited an
uprising of concern about the
way agents have been treated
and are viewed in
this country in the wake of
those killings. There have been
an outpouring of support for
the Asian Pacific Islander
community, including in the
Houston area, which is a large
Asian community as well to win
as the national director C a a
national organization that
since 1973 has been focused on
the civil rights of Asian
Americans, Pacific Islanders.
Thank you for joining to thank
you. First of all, tell me what
is What’s the purpose C a.
>> You know, we are a civil
rights organization which
members across the country and
do policy and
advocacy on issues that impact
BP I’s such as immigration,
education access language
access to be. And we also do
programming to support our
community in terms of age
identity development,
leadership, development.
>> So
when the the killings happened
in Atlanta. The killer accused
killer said it was not a
racially motivated. It doesn’t
seem that way to your
organization. Does it.
>> That’s right. We we we
know from we know for a fact
that it was racially motivated,
whether or not it was a level
of unconscious bias or not.
>> So now that that
has happened. It’s signed a
light, if you will, on what
many Asian community have known
for quite some time and that is
discrimination. Talk a little
bit about what you’ve
been fighting that maybe people
have not been paying attention
to until this sort of thing
happens to rising to a level of
visibility.
>> Yeah. I
mean, it discrimination against
Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders been along for.
There’s been a long history of
our country. And you know, I
kind of legislatively with 1882
year Chinese exclusion acts
were. And that was the very
first time in our country when
a specific ethnic group was
banned. And then we see
recurrences of that later on
rate. But specifically within
the past 12 months. Within the
past year. you know that the
pandemic began and we had stay
at home orders. That’s when you
really see kind of an up tick
anti-asian discrimination
because, I mean, is Americans
are visibly different and it’s
easy to pick them out and ran.
You have a pandemic that
unfortunately became
associated with an ethnic or a
a racial group. That’s when you
really started seeing, you
know, just slurs verbal
bullying in schools. We had,
you know, since March 2020.
About 3000. It’s it’s it’s
nearing 4,000 reports across
the country. Anti Asian.
He incidences like this.
And it’s really unfortunate.
You know, we’ve been talking
about like please stop.
Stop Asian. He but it’s taken
this tragedy in Atlanta for the
nation to really open their
eyes and say, oh, this is a
real problem.
>> You talked about some of the
challenges that the incidences
that have been happening around
the country. What is your
organization hoping to do to
try to help change some of that
other than, you know, having
rallies and that sort of thing.
What are some of the things
trying to do to help change
that dynamic.
>> Yeah, sure. It’s happening
on different levels of
government trait. First of all,
we have our was th actors and
their different cities and
states and working rest.
Law enforcement to make sure
that are they’re trained in
cultural competency when they
respond incidences in calls
because not only do we want to
make sure we are not seeing
or IQ over policing police
brutality, but also our
community has sort of or
distrust in law enforcement
because they see that, you
know, sometimes when we call to
report a shooting incident is
not taken seriously or it’s
brushed off like, oh, this is
an annotation heat incidents.
So that’s at the local level
along with, you know, creating
watching groups and body
systems that fortunately it’s
come to that. Sir, that folks
can go out together in a do
their son. Sure.
Aaronson travel on the federal
level. We are pushing for the
no hate act to be. Re
introduced and passed in both
House and both houses of
Congress and that that is
calling for FBI to improve
reporting because we’ve seen
over the last few years.
Pages and pages of 0, 8
incidences anti-asian hate
incidents is from FBI reports
and that’s wrong. We know
there’s underreporting it.
They can’t possibly be 0.
The second is very new is the
COVID-19 hate crimes act.
And that’s calling on federal,
state and level governments for
at least one to really double
down. I’m taking a look at an
investigating thoroughly any
anti-asian sheets incident that
is being reported government or
or law enforcement.
>> The you’ve got a lot going
on. How optimistic are you that
probably Probert progress can
be made in those areas.
>> You know, I think.
I’m semi action at the federal
level. You know, you know these
bills off and take a lot
of negotiation. I think at the
local level, I’m more
optimistic these hate
incidences or a local issue and
national organizations like
us. We’re putting the resources
and the attention to the
grassroots organizing. And so.
I’m hopeful that things will
start changing in the way.
Law enforcement responds and
locals, you know, our allies,
other communities.
>> Are paying more attention.
Well, we’re going to talk more
with on. Thank you for being
willing to stick around for
newsmakers action will continue
this conversation to win.