In April, the U.S. Senate passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act in response to increased violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Before he boarded a plane to return to Washington Monday, Vermont Congressman Peter Welch joined advocates to discuss the importance of the bill.
S.937passed the Senate on a 95 to 1 vote and was passed by the House Tuesday on a 364-62 vote. The bill says “there were nearly 3,800 reported cases of anti-Asian discrimination and incidents related to COVID–19 between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021, in all 50 States and the District of Columbia.”
Vermont at-large Congressman Peter Welch, a Democrat, calls the escalating hate crimes against those of Asian-Americans and Pacific Island descent unacceptable.
“What this legislation would do is really straightforward," Welch said. "Number one it’s an acknowledgement by Congress that this hate that is directed indiscriminately towards Asian American Pacific Islanders is condemned by Congress. Number two it establishes in the Attorney General’s office a position focused on addressing this practice of attacking people based on their nationality their ethnic origin. And third and very importantly it’s really focusing on getting the data. Part of stopping it is documenting it.”
Mieko Ozeki with Vermont Womenpreneurs is a fourth generation Chinese-Japanese American whose family immigrated to the U.S. over 125 years ago. She noted that anti-Asian sentiment is part of American history.
“While we feel relatively safe in Vermont it is not far from our minds that horrific hate crimes can happen here like in Atlanta, Indianapolis, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles," Ozeki said. "It just takes one person to cause harm. The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a first step towards tracking these crimes. We know we are not the only communities of color impacted by racism. So we ask our lawmakers to push further with legislation and apply the same lens of protection for all. We are Americans too.”
University of Vermont Senior Advisor for Human Resources, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Paul Suk-Hyun Yoon is a second generation Korean American. He reflected on incidents of anti-Asian hate and the resulting fear he has felt.
“Last March when three members of an Asian American family, including a two-year-old and a six-year-old, were stabbed because the suspect thought the family was Chinese and infecting people with COVID-19 I was terrified," he said. "I was terrified that something like that would happen to my children, who were five and nine at the time. When I saw the gruesome picture of the six year old’s slashed face the cut went from behind his ear to his eye. For many days and nights afterwards I would without warning see my children’s faces cut that way and as a parent I constantly worried I wouldn’t be able to stop something like that from happening.”
Suk-Hyun Yoon added that the incidents over the past year highlight the need for the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.
“This bill is neither going to eradicate racism nor is it going to bring a stop to all of the anti-Asian attacks occurring across our country," he said. "However I believe it centers AAPI experiences and voices in a unique way and it will do more to address the anti-Asian hate than any other piece of legislation that we’ve seen to date. I too believe everybody in our country deserves to feel safe and I hope legislation like this brings us one step closer to that reality.”
The Asian American population in Vermont numbers about 12-thousand or 2 percent of state residents.
