A year after the Atlanta-area spa killings, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders reflect on the impact of the tragic day that brought national and local communities together.
“Up until the pandemic, we talked about AAPI hate crimes, but that voice often faded away amid the many issues we faced during the pandemic,” Sarah Park, the president of the Korean American Coalition Metro Atlanta, said. “We were often a lonely voice within our community.”
Anti-Asian bias rose after media and political officials, including then-President Trump, used phrases like Han said his goal was to inspire political action in a community that often only interacted in small cultural circles and wasn’t involved in civil rights activities. Following the Atlanta-area spa shootings, many Black and Asian protesters joined together in rallies across the country, holding signs saying “Black-Asian unity,” a gesture of solidarity for two groups who were often historically at odds with each other.
“Asian Americans aren’t a monolith, so you’re going to have different reactions from people. There’s a group that believes in law enforcement, and a group that maybe went through the L.A. riots,” she said, which gets them thinking, “We have to protect us. No one else is going to protect us.” Still, a full year after the shootings, Atlantans are feeling ambivalent regarding the progress of Asian Americans in the area.
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