By Shirley Ng, AsAmNews Staff Writer
On Saturday, my friends and I who have been frustrated with the the spike of hate crimes against Asians, and especially at the President who still uses the racist slur, “kung flu,” we decided it was time to have the first New York City march to “Stop The Hate” targeting Asians.
Known as “Concerned AsAm Citizens of New York City,” aka “CAAC NYC” my friends Barbara Yau, Judy Ng and myself pulled this march together in a matter of three weeks.
We had no idea how many would show, but approximately 60 people joined our march from Chinatown’s Columbus Park to Washington Square Park. They shouted “Stop the hate, stop the violence” and “Asians are not a virus.” I even practiced my Cantonese to say, “This is a protest against hate towards Asian Americans” through the bullhorn. Unfortunately, we were not able to secure a bilingual speaker at Columbus Park, but we felt the need to say something in Chinese so the community knew why we were marching.
I invited Congresswoman Grace Meng and Honorable Doris Ling-Cohan (Ret.) to attend the march to share some inspiration, but they were not scheduled to be in New York. Instead, they each wrote exclusive statements for us to read.
I read a moving tribute from Meng of her memory of the late Rep John Lewis “sitting with him on the floor of The House when he led a sit-in protest to push for tougher gun safety laws.” She remembered Lewis as a remarkable and courageous human being who fought and bled for equality and injustice.”
Ng read Judge Ling-Cohan’s message who urged those in attendance to work together and to, “Register to vote and vote in every election for those who speak out for our community.”
Kate Bae a recent hate-crime victim, was tracked down by Yau who spearheaded CAAC NYC. She felt Bae would be able to spur the energy of the march if she spoke about her recent attack. She was not able to attend, but gave Barbara a message to read about her strength and resilience.
At Columbus Park, CAAC NYC awarded the first recipients of their “Community Action Hero,” award to the NYC Guardian Angels for their community service for patrolling Chinatown, and to photographer Corky Lee for his continuous advocacy for Asian Americans.
As we marched from Chinatown to Washington Square Park, we distributed “I Am Not A Virus” posters with pre-printed instructions on how to report a hate-crime or bias incident to the NYPD. The Guardian Angels joined in on our march and helped pass out the posters which came in three languages- Chinese, English and Spanish.
The march concluded with a monologue about a woman being blamed by a man for the Coronavirus, written by Karen Huie and performed by Karen Tsen Lee.
This was our group’s third anti-Asian “Don’t Be Cruel-Stop The Hate” campaign event in Chinatown. Find us as CAAC NYC on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about us and our future events.
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