Asian Americans in Atlanta fear for their safety after spa shootings
On March 16, eight people were fatally shot, six of them Asian women, in a string of Atlanta-area attacks at three spas. The tragic shootings have heightened fear and outrage over a recent rise in hate crimes directed at Asian Americans since the coronavirus pandemic began. Yahoo News spoke with Asian Americans who live in Atlanta about how they’ve been affected by the spa shootings and the broader rise in anti-Asian hate.
Video Transcript
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LESTER HOLT: Tonight, new developments in the spa shooting rampage that left eight dead, six of them Asian women, in Atlanta.
JESSICA LIU: There is no doubt in my mind-- and I think, like many other people, that this was racially targeted towards Asian-Americans.
STEPHANIE ZHANG: I knew something like this was going to happen eventually.
ANGELA JIANG: I just remember crying myself to sleep that night, just trying to take the news in basically.
I literally pulled up Google Maps and saw that there were shootings just five minutes away from where I lived, and at spas that I was familiar with. I had pass by a lot, you know, going around in the area.
It's no secret to anyone that during COVID, service workers and the women who had to work in the spa were already putting themselves on the line during a worldwide pandemic. And I think the cruelty of it all, and realizing-- and just thinking, why did they have to die, who were already putting themselves so much at rest to just make their livelihood was just incredibly heartbreaking.
STEPHANIE ZHANG: The hypersexualizaiton of Asian-American women is not a new thing. And the fact that the first place this person thought to go to was these massage parlors is so clearly stereotypical of these common narratives of how people will exotify and sexualize Asian-American women. And I was just-- I can't even say shocked at this point, because of how extensively violence against Asian people has been escalating. When COVID hit especially, there was a lot of rhetoric around, oh, the virus is from China. Asian-Americans all carry this virus.
- Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus? Why do you keep using this?
DONALD TRUMP: Because it comes from China.
- A lot of people say it's racist.
DONALD TRUMP: It's not racist at all, no. Not at all. It comes from China.
JESSICA LIU: I think in my mind, there's no doubt that there is a racial motivation to it. Because you know, unfortunately, I think with these incidents, a lot of the times when it is maybe a white male shooter, they're so quick to find a justification outside of race.
JAY BAKER: The suspect did take responsibility for the shootings. He claims that these-- and as the chief said, this is still early. But he does claim that it was not racially motivated. He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to-- to go to these places. And it's a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.
JESSICA LIU: I think there's a lot of overlap in the way Asian women in the media and society in general have been sexualized as these easy targets, I think, and objectified as just-- in a way that's just, yeah, it turns them into more just like sexual objects in a way. There's too much overlap between the two for race to not be a factor.
STEPHANIE ZHANG: The issue of there's no accountability for, I guess, white male shooters that go out and commit these acts of violence. A lot of rhetoric that the police put out was, oh, he was just having a bad day and did this.
JAY BAKER: He was pretty much fed up and had been kind of at the end of his rope. And yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.
STEPHANIE ZHANG: And I just cannot fathom, who having like the worst day of their lives, going out and shooting people and committing these [INAUDIBLE] violence? I really just can't wrap my mind around it.
JESSICA LIU: You know, being just a young woman in general, I think there's a general fear that you are an easy target for someone. And then compounded with the fact that I'm also Asian-American and we are living in a very scary time where people are looking to scapegoat people who look like me and people from my community for things that are beyond our control.
ANGELA JIANG: Prior to the pandemic, I would say I didn't feel as at risk. I think I felt really at risk mainly as a woman, and expecting-- at times being catcalled, and just preparing myself emotionally and mentally for that type of harassment. But I think the intersections between my gender identity as a woman and being very aware of my Asian identity really heightened during the pandemic in a way that was just unprecedented before all of this started to happen.
STEPHANIE ZHANG: I think this is a fear that a lot of women just have being in public, is the fact that we can't actually be free and exist in our lives, because we're constantly thinking about what could happen to us in an empty parking lot or if we're staying out too late at night, or even if we're just like, wearing clothes we want to wear, you know? There's always the threat of violence. I would say it doesn't really faze me anymore, because this is the stuff that I'm like constantly afraid.
ANGELA JIANG: Just walking around is something I really enjoy, just to see what's going on. But I remember on Tuesday and yesterday, not even wanting to leave my home, really feeling very depressed, but also just unsafe. And this feeling, I think, definitely got exacerbated by the shootings and just how close they were to my neighborhood.
JESSICA LIU: I'd definitely say I've been trying to avoid going out more. I was honestly thinking like about grocery shopping that I usually maybe do once a week. And I was thinking, well, maybe I'll push that to next week.
ANGELA JIANG: I don't want to stop taking a walk, because I think that's exactly what they want. I think they want community members and Asian-American women like myself to be scared. And I'm trying to balance not having my joy be taken away and my livelihood of just existing be compromised for the fear of fearing for my own life.