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| Rep. Kim Ju-young, third from left, of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, holds a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday, to propose a resolution calling for the abolition of racial discrimination and violence against Asian Americans, while calling on U.S. authorities to guarantee the safety of Asian Americans, including Korean Americans. A total of 80 lawmakers, including Kim, have joined the proposal for the resolution. Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Kim Ju-young |
By Jung Da-min
Concerns are growing over anti-Asian American violence in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Racism against Asian Americans has been growing after the Chinese city of Wuhan was said to be the origin of the virus, with the global crisis coinciding with geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China.
The shootings in Atlanta, March 16, which killed eight people, are widely seen as constituting a hate crime against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Six of the victims of the tragic incident were identified as Asian and at least four of those killed were of Korean descent.
The incident fueled fear and anger against anti-Asian American violence. Asian American communities in the U.S., along with Asians abroad, have started to raise their voices against such violence.
Korean lawmakers are joining these voices by issuing a resolution calling for the abolition of racial discrimination and violence against Asian Americans, while pressing U.S. authorities to guarantee the safety of Asian Americans, including Korean Americans.
Rep. Kim Ju-young of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, together with 79 other lawmakers, proposed the resolution to the National Assembly during a press conference at the Assembly on Thursday.
"According to a report by Stop AAPI Hate, a website of U.S. human rights groups for reporting hate crimes against Asian Americans, at least 3,795 hate incidents have been reported since March 2020. Racial hate and hate crimes have been on the rise with the outbreak and global spread of COVID-19," read a statement from Rep. Kim's office.
"Racial hate must stop. Now we have to make a difference. In this regard, we urge the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea to pay attention to the cry of 'STOP ASIAN HATE,' which has been raised around the world. The Assembly must pass this resolution to ensure human dignity, as a universal value of mankind, for all people, and to prohibit discrimination based on racial hate."
Asian civic communities have also raised their voices against anti-Asian racism.
The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), an international group of Asian American journalists, especially noted that the Atlanta shooting incident, "is inextricably linked to harassment and sexualized violence against Asian women." They cite the Stop AAPI Hate report of nearly 3,800 hate incidents compiled since March 2020, which said that women of Asian descent have reported 2.3 times more incidents of violence than AAPI men.
In its recently published reporting guidance on the Atlanta shooting case, the AAJA has called on newsrooms around the world to cover related cases in order to promote understanding of anti-Asian racism and invisibility.
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| Screenshot from the website of the Asian American Journalists Association |
Members of the AAJA's Seoul chapter also translated the guidance from English into Korean.
"A few of us at the Asian American Journalists Association's Seoul chapter got together to translate the English guide on how to report on the shootings, because we realized how vastly different the racial discourse is here. We wanted to try to somewhat bridge that gap by making accessible resources in Korean not only to local reporters but also to ordinary Koreans," said Grace Moon, a freelance journalist and a member of AAJA Seoul.
"The grief didn't sink in until a few days after the shootings. It's been difficult to process everything from afar. During such a dark time, I strangely found myself missing America, my home, while also feeling detached and distant," Moon said.
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