A year after the Atlanta shootings, Asian women live in fear: 'How are we all going to stay safe?'
Source: Washington Post
A year after the Atlanta shootings, Asian women live in fear: ‘How are we all going to stay safe?’
By Marian Chia-Ming Liu
March 16, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Like many Asian women living in the United States, Melody Karmana is afraid to venture out.
A year after the Atlanta spa shootings, it’s been “incident after incident” targeting Asians, the 24-year-old said, many of which are not only in her city of New York, but also near her campus at New York University.
“I can’t even explain like what it feels to be walking outside and not knowing whether someone is going to hit you,” said the law student, who has been opting to bike or Uber instead of using the subway. It’s “so frustrating to look at yourself in the mirror and realize that’s literally the only reason why people are targeting you.”
Last year, attacks against Asian Americans soared, and one-third of the community reported fearing threats, physical attacks and violence, according to the Pew Research Center. Since the start of the pandemic, horrific attacks against Asian elders, as well as Asian-owned businesses, have been reported throughout the country.
But for many Asian and Asian American women, the shootings on March 16, 2021 — in which eight people, including six Asian women, were fatally shot at three Atlanta-area spas — was an inflection point. The incident reignited conversations about the racist and sexist stereotypes that have long led to the hyper-sexualization and marginalization of Asian women.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/03/16/anti-asian-attacks-nyc-atlanta/