Haiyan Hu endured her first hate incident while visiting the Bennington Battle Monument in Vermont with her son last Friday, News 10 reports. A man shouted racial slurs at the pair and told them to ‘go home’ multiple times, according to News 10.
Bennington’s town officials reached out with apologies Wednesday, the Bennington Banner reports. Despite her experience, Hu said the Bennington community doesn’t need to apologize.
“I have visited Bennington Monument with my family and friends for many times since 2002. We had many wonderful memories of our visits,” Hu said. “This hateful speech I encountered will not stop me from visiting this beautiful and peaceful historical site.”
However, as a professor of Chinese and Japanese languages, Hu said many of her international students have reported experiences with anti-Asian racism throughout the pandemic, News 10 reports.
“People write ‘Chinese Virus’ on the ground on campus,” Hu said, according to News 10. She hopes that sharing her experiences will raise awareness.
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In a letter to Hu, Bennington’s Select Board chair Donald Campbell said the town’s government was ‘disgusted’ by the man’s behavior, the Bennington Banner reports.
“I am so very sorry that you were treated poorly by a stranger and it makes me sick to think he may have been from this community,” Campbell wrote. “We have not been able to identify the offensive individual but please know that racism, xenophobia, and hate speech are not at all welcome here.”
Town Manager Stuart Hurd also urged the Bennington community to condemn anti-Asian racism and xenophobia in a letter to the editor, according to the Bennington Banner.
“Unfortunately, we live in a time where the most hateful, hurtful actions are enabled at the highest levels of our government,” Hurd wrote. “We, as a community, cannot condone these actions. We must call them out in the strongest terms.”
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