“When I was attacked on the subway, there were so many New Yorkers around me, but no one came to my rescue, no one made a video,” said the 61-year-old Filipino American.
“I was worried I wouldn’t make it … We’re all New Yorkers, and we should look out for each other.”
Quintana, a New Yorker, described the Feb. 3 attack on city leaders, Asian Americans and their supporters who attended Saturday’s “Rise Up Against Anti-Asian Hate” rally in Foley Square.
“Stop Asian hatred!” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told the crowd. “This is the message we need to get out, not just in New York City, but across the country: Stop the Asian hatred! Stop it now!”
US Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told the crowd that there were signs of an increase in violence at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Tragically, those warnings came true and the Asian-American community, in New York and the country, was the target of race-based discrimination and harassment,” said Schumer.
New York Attorney General Letitia James encouraged individuals at the meeting to report hate crimes to her office.
“Come to my office so we can report on these individuals who hate us so we can shut them down. Any attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said James.
Pearl Sun, a New York City resident, attended the meeting but did not speak to the crowd. She told CNN that she is now wary when walking the city streets.
“I have to tell you that I am walking out the door and I brace myself, I prepare myself,” she said. “I stop listening to music when I walk around. I stop listening to podcasts. … I want to make sure I’m paying attention to what’s going on around me or whatever is happening.”
“I think our previous administration’s rhetoric was certainly the catalyst for all of this. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
“It has been an ongoing situation, but the earlier rhetoric has already fueled his hatred by calling it the kung flu virus and the Chinese virus, and unfortunately we are seemingly an easy target.”
Sun said the rhetoric had heightened hatred, especially in cases involving older Asian Americans.
“They’re defenseless, and it’s cowardly, and it pisses me off, it really pisses me off,” Sun said.
City resident Will Lex Ham said many of his family live in fear and anxiety. He said the Asian community does not receive resources in proportion to the population in the city, state and nation.
“We’re just tired. We’re tired of being scapegoated for many of the pandemic’s problems. We’re tired of being ignored,” Ham said.
Attack reports emerging
The meeting was organized by the Asian American Federation, an umbrella organization that advocates for better policies and services for Asian Americans.
The federation says there were “nearly 500 bias incidents or hate crimes in 2020, ranging from verbal to physical abuse, to coughing or spitting, to shunning and other forms of discrimination.”
Those numbers were collected by the AAF, Stop AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islanders) Hate advocacy group, the NYPD and the NYC Commission on Human Rights, the AAF said.
However, this is a fraction of the actual number of incidents that have occurred, as most incidents go unreported. For example, more than 90% of the reports collected by AAF were not reported to the NYPD or the NYC Commission on Human Rights. said the AAF in a press release.