Violence against elderly Asian Americans in the Bay Area is skyrocketing

A fatal attack on an 84-year-old Thai man in San Francisco. A violent attack of an 91-year-old man in Oakland’s Chinatown. An attack and robbery of a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman in San Jose. Another one, targeting a man at a San Leandro bank. Graffiti outside of a Chinese school in San Francisco. That's just in the span of two weeks.

Elsewhere in the nation, a 61-year-old Filipino man was slashed across the face on a New York City subway. And in Portland, more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses were vandalized.

The issue has also been pushed into the national spotlight, as celebrities, including tennis star Naomi Osaka, Oakland rap forebear Mistah F.A.B. and "The Newsroom" actress Olivia Munn, have spoken out against the attacks. Actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu offered $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the Oakland man who assaulted the 91-year-old man in Chinatown; a suspect was later identified and arrested.

It paints a daunting portrait of life for elderly Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, who are already experiencing heightened levels of duress and solitude as the pandemic rages on. Some, like elderly Chinese immigrants who previously frequented now-closed dim sum restaurants, have not seen their friends or family in person for fear of catching COVID-19, turning instead to online communication.

That isolation and fear are taking a drastic mental and physical toll, too. Dr. XinQi Dong, a Rutgers physician and the director of the school's Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, told SFGATE that racist discrimination can worsen depression, isolation and suicidal ideation for elders.

“I think there’s always been racial violence against Asian Americans, especially against the elderly,” noted Rina Wang, a Chinese American lawyer who lives in San Francisco. “I think it’s been exacerbated in COVID, but we’ve certainly seen this before the pandemic.”

Dale Minami, a San Francisco attorney who was pivotal in overturning the much-maligned Supreme Court ruling against Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American who refused interment during World War II, points out that Asian Americans, historically, have been made easy, direct targets of racist, xenophobic attacks for centuries.

"We carry another burden [being] viewed as 'perpetual foreigners' and not truly 'American,'" he told SFGATE in an email interview. This perception, he says, led directly to mass lynchings of Chinese immigrants in California, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that banned Chinese immigration, the internment of Japanese Americans, and the murder of Vincent Chin by two white men in the 1980s.

The model minority stereotype has also masked the challenges that many, often lower-income and Southeast Asians, face. Some Asian Americans, often those who are more educated and wealthier, have benefited from key economic and cultural privileges. But that reality has also obscured how Asian American women, particularly those in service industries, have seen the highest rate of unemployment in the pandemic, with 44% out of work for six months or longer.

Anti-Asian sentiment has lingered and drastically heightened in 2020, taking on yet another virulent tone at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Activists and experts say that the inflammatory language, including officials referring to COVID-19 as the "China” or “Wuhan” virus, incited an increase in physical and psychological harm against Asians.

"The pattern is not new but it is now more virulent, frequent and dangerous, incited by the inflammatory and racist rhetoric of President Trump and his cronies spewed into [tweets] and the news," Minami said.

While the threat of harm continues, communities are working together on solutions. Community organizers are setting up support groups, mutual aid, community-led patrols, and volunteer walks with seniors, reports KQED. This weekend, at the beginning of the Lunar New Year, organizations in the Bay Area are holding solidarity rallies in Oakland and San Francisco.

Another solution often mentioned in these discussions brings to light differences among communities of color, including within the Asian American community. Some business owners, reported KGO, have called for more police and security presence in Oakland’s Chinatown. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf pointed to reductions in police funding as a factor to increased anti-Asian violence, including the Oakland Chinatown attack.

And Oakland police chief LeRonne Armstrong, KPIX reported, is patrolling the streets in the area to ensure public safety, especially around Lunar New Year.

However, the call to ramp up policing is not a universal one. A key concern among some Asian American lawmakers and activists is that carceral measures to protect Asian elders — more policing, harsher punitive punishments — cause undue harm to Black residents, especially after 2020 drew stark attention to the disproportionate effects of police violence onto Black Americans.

Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke, the president of the D.C.-based organization Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, also acknowledged the distrust that some Asian Americans face when working with law enforcement. “This community has a fraught relationship with law enforcement,” she said, “so … most people may not want to report [violent acts.]”

More insidious is the racist desire to target Black Americans because some of the assailants, notably in the death of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, were young Black men.

Schaaf, for instance, was condemned by members of the Oakland City Council, including City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, a Filipina woman, who called for “healing and solidarity” amid the violence. Her call was supported by Councilwoman Carroll Fife, a Black woman, who called for Schaaf to “apologize to Bas, as well as Oakland’s Asian and Black communities.”

“Across the nation some electeds are seeding division among racial groups. I continue to be angered by what Mayor Schaaf did — taking a space for healing & safety & using it to politically attack me,” Bas said in a tweet Tuesday.

“White Supremacy won’t divide us,” she added. “We’ll create structural reform together that makes all Oaklanders safer.” The mayor's office and the city administrator were culpable for police cuts in Oakland's Chinatown, Alvina Wong, a director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, pointed out to Newsweek.

On Tuesday, more than 40 Asian American organizations across the Bay Area came together to release a statement to denounce violence, press for justice and call for solidarity.

"One of the reasons we came together is ... that we do think it’s possible to center victims and their families to condemn and disavow this violence and crime and attacks against our vulnerable community, and also condemn anti-Black racism," said Cynthia Choi, the co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.

"This is what racism does: It divides our community. It pits us against each other. We have to recognize that violence and crime is ravaging the Black community as well," she continued. "Just as I vehemently condemn anti-Asian racism, I condemn anti-Black racism. It is possible to do all those things, to lift up those voices and promote solidarity. That’s what’s going to keep our communities safe."

Minami, the attorney, has a comprehensive list of long-term solutions: allyship between marginalized communities, education efforts, more political power for Asian Americans, reparations for Black Americans and income equality.

For Mielke, the solution requires a middle ground between community organizing and legislation. “It’s about community action and being able to work with law enforcement [or policymakers] so that we can show the data of these incidences and these assaults,” she said. “We can’t do anything in terms of addressing it in a public policy level [otherwise.]”

Ultimately, the ways to address violence among our most vulnerable communities, especially older Asian Americans and immigrants, are manifold, complex and not universally agreed-upon — and may take an extended period of time to resolve.

But there’s a shared agreement among many Asian Americans that education, community work and solidarity are integral parts to the solution.

"I do believe these efforts will decrease the friction and move us closer together rather than farther apart," Minami said.