Welcome to today's edition of Navigator, CityLab's biweekly Saturday newsletter.
Last March, my friend and I hung out for what would be the last time in months as the Washington, D.C., area went on lockdown. Those of us in the U.S. were only beginning to understand the havoc the novel coronavirus would wreak on the bodies of its victims, and on the already-fragile racial fabric of the country.
I admitted to her that I was afraid of the virus, though more for my parents than for myself. Then in her usual blunt way, she replied, “I’m more afraid of getting shanked.”
Both of us are Chinese American, and daughters of first-generation immigrants. Around this time, the coronavirus was constantly referred to as the “Chinese flu” and the “Wuhan virus,” after the Chinese city from which it originated. Then-president Donald Trump would continue using those phrases unapologetically in his White House briefings, even as Asian-American leaders warned that he was stoking fierce xenophobia against a community already being scapegoated for the pandemic.
As I wrote in April, “Asian restaurants saw their business drop, children of Asian immigrants were subjected to bullying and public transit became a breeding ground for verbal assaults.”
Nearly 3,000 anti-Asian crimes have been reported to the site Stop AAPI Hate between March and December, though activists say many more have gone unreported. A recent Washington Post report cites the fear of the virus and harassment as reasons why Asian families are keeping their kids out of the classroom at disproportionately high rates. It’s not new; disease outbreaks tend to fuel racism, as in 1899 when a plague outbreak became grounds for Honolulu to burn down its entire Chinatown “ in the name of cleanliness and morality.”
Early reports suggested verbal harassment was the most common form of assault at the start of the pandemic, but recently, a string of attacks on the elderly has horrified the Asian-American community. In one of the most shocking cases, recorded on video in late January, a 19-year-old man ran across the street in a San Francisco neighborhood and violently shoved 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee to the ground, killing him.
While my friend and I know we aren’t spared from the threat of such crimes, it’s older adults like our parents who we worry are most vulnerable. And that’s far scarier, especially at a time when the pandemic has kept families apart.
The attack also happened just weeks before the Lunar New Year, when our parents and grandparents are usually out and about, stocking up on groceries to prepare for the holiday. In phone calls with my own parents, it has now become routine to take turns warning each other to be careful outside the house.
In reporting recently on this issue, my colleague Sarah Holder and I spoke to activists who are taking it upon themselves to patrol the streets of Chinatowns in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect seniors and merchants. They say they need more support, though not necessarily in the form of stronger police presence, for fear that may actually drive a wedge between communities.
The recent wave of anti-Asian crimes, some of which were perpetrated by Black and brown individuals, comes at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and many advocates are pushing for solidarity rather than finger-pointing. At the same time, they're grappling with how to seek justice for victims, many of whom are immigrants taught by American society to keep their heads down — and some of whom have, themselves, long been fed anti-Black rhetoric.
It's a hard conversation to have, even in my own circle of friends and family. There’s lots of frustration — that cities aren’t directing more resources to protect residents and businesses, or investing enough in community interventions. And that some officials are even downplaying the severity of the attacks: The suspect who's pled not guilty to killing Ratanapakdee was charged with murder and elderly abuse, but not with a hate crime as the community is calling for.
Many fear a repeat of history. In 1982, a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was brutally beaten to death by two recently laid off autoworkers who’d mistaken him for Japanese. America’s auto industry was flailing, and many blamed Japanese manufacturers.
Despite witness testimony that the men screamed racial slurs at Chin during the murder, a judge would later let them walk free, deeming the attack little more than a bar fight.
-Linda Poon
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- Santiago is betting on a fleet of electric taxis to clear its smog problem, but not all cab drivers are convinced
- It'll soon be a year since the pandemic shut down cities, and it's time to do something about the toll on mental health
- Motorcoaches are fighting to survive after the pandemic halted intercity travel, but they keep getting left behind in Covid relief talks
- Ditching the office saves employers money but costs some employees. Here's how remote workers are spending more on housing and rent.
- An end to Covid is (finally!) in sight, but now is not the time for cities to go back to business as usual
- Bad news: Cities are sinking under the weight of their own urban development
- Battle hymns of the old South ( The Baffler)
- New Orleans is looking toward a hopeful future. A new bookstore is lighting the way. ( Washington Post)
- Zillow ghost maps appear to show the neighborhoods highways destroyed (Buzzfeed)
- The tribal coalition fighting to save monarch butterflies (The New Republic)
- Airlines in Europe are looking at sunshine and beaches as their route to making money again (CNBC)
- Thank You, Dr. Zizmor. The newest fashion trend in New York is — unironically, hyper-specifically — New York itself. ( New York Magazine)
- An Atlanta neighborhood tries to preserve "a sense of place" (Christian Science Monitor)
- Two (kinda awesome) Transformer sculptures ignite a debate over public art in a fancy D.C. neighborhood (DCist)
- @dzerlie spots a young girl rollerblading under wirelines in a Jakarta neighborhood.
- @__txiki__ finds pastel-colored row homes is in San Francisco
- @camilleammoun juxtaposes an intact building with the skeletal rermains of another in Beirut.
- @st3rling_photos captures a couple dining out in an empty restaurant in Venice for Valentine's Day.
Tag us with the hashtag #citylabontheground so we can shout out your views on CityLab’s Instagram page and consider them for the next edition of Navigator.
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March 06, 2021 at 09:31PM
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