No End In Sight For NY's 'Second Pandemic:' Anti-Asian Hate Crime

NEW YORK CITY — There’s no vaccine for hate.

New York has seen much progress in the battle against COVID-19 since it first began its spread two years ago.

But with the virus came another pandemic that the city has shown little promise in curtailing — hate crime targeting Asian New Yorkers.

“We are at a breaking point right now,” Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director for the Asian American Federation, told Patch. “Everyone is horrified.”

New York City has seen nearly 200 anti-Asian hate crimes over the course of the pandemic, with 144 reported in 2020, 33 in 2021 and 10 in 2022.

The hate crime spike saw anti-Asian incidents increase 125 percent last month, according to NYPD data.

Among recent crimes is one man’s attack of seven Asian women in roughly two hours, the fatal stabbing of Christina Lee by a man who followed her into her home and the death of Michelle Go, who was shoved onto subway tracks.

"I can’t tell you how many calls I get,” Yoo said. "There’s a lot of anxiety right now."

The influx of anxiety is just one reason why advocates believe the data does not fully capture the scope of the problem, Yoo said.

NYPD data likely under-represents anti-Asian hate crimes by between 70 and 90 percent, according to Yoo, who said language barriers, immigration status and fear of retaliation prevent many Asian New Yorkers from reporting attacks.

Yoo — whose organization advocates for about 1.7 million Asian New Yorkers — said the community feels both dangerously conspicuous and invisible.

This dichotomy of fear began with initial reports of novel coronavirus’s appearance in Wuhan, China, in 2019 — the virus's arrival in New York City has since been traced to Europe — and a U.S. president who called it “Kung Flu.”

“Whenever he did that we would actually see an uptick in the attacks,” Yoo said. "We were told what we were going through globally, that we were responsible.”

NYPD data and local media coverage support this link between anti-Asian hate crime and the pandemic.

There was just one confirmed incident of anti-Asian hate in in 2019 but the NYPD recorded 15 anti-Asian in March 2020 month and has since reported an average of about eight per month, data show.

In March 2020, Patch reported four separate anti-Asian hate crimes in just two days.
On March 11 — ten days after New York City confirmed its first COVID-19 case — Patch reported that an Asian woman and her baby had been spat at by a man who yelled, “Chinese virus.”

On March 12, Patch reported three cases in single day:

• An Asian man was kicked by a man who screamed, "F--- you, Chinese coronavirus.”
• A Long Island commuter was spat at in Penn Station by a man who said, "I hope you die by the coronavirus."
• A Queens dad was threatened while taking his kid to school by a man who shouted, "Where is your f---ing mask?"

The violence has only mounted.

In May 2020, an unmasked man grabbed an Asian subway rider, shouted, "you're infected," and tried to shove him off a train.

"Coronavirus Asian," a man told a woman on the Upper East Side in April 2021, "I should punch you."

In a March 2021 daylight attack in Hell's Kitchen, a man punched, kicked and stomped on a woman outside a hotel lobby and told her, "F--- you, you don't belong here.”

The Hell’s Kitchen attack was one of 35 confirmed anti-Asian hate crimes that March, which broke the grim record for the most recorded in a single month, according to data.

The crime wave has spurred task forces and an uncountable number of calls for an end of what former Mayor Bill de Blasio called the "second pandemic."

The NYPD formed an Asian hate crime task force in October 2020, and last February de Blasio rallied city agencies to bring support to Asian community groups.

The New York State also established a $10 million fund in April 2021 to battle anti-Asian hate, but organizations told THE CITY in September the cash had yet to come.

And Queens Rep. Grace Meng introduced the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which created a Department of Justice program to review local police forces’ COVID-19-related hate crimes, and was signed by President Joe Biden last April.

But despite government action — and the social media support of Hollywood actress Olivia Munn — the city continues to mourn lives lost to anti-Asian hate.

Among them, Yao Pan Ma, Lee, Go and Guiying Ma, who died after a man struck her on the head with a rock and triggered a months-long coma, police reported earlier this month.
She was 61.

“My heart aches for her family,” Meng said at the time. “So many in the Asian American community continue to live in fear.”

According to Yoo, the fear is not just of attacks, but of people who allow them to happen.

These New Yorkers include the building staff outside the Hell’s Kitchen hotel lobby, whom Patch reported stood by and did nothing — and a police officer who told the Long Island commuter, who was spat at in Penn Station, not to bother reporting it.

More recently, several people have told Yoo about anti-Asian attacks that unfolded on crowded subway trains where nobody stepped up to help, she said.

But Yoo also noted the reverse is true — proven anecdotally last week when two librarians helped police arrest the man suspected of beating seven Asian women— that some New Yorkers who aren't Asian are stepping up.

Yoo told Patch the second pandemic won’t end without their support.

“All of this anti-Asian hate doesn’t get solved by Asians alone,” Yoo said. “The thing I ask my fellow New Yorkers is please, everybody look out for each other.”