Along with advocating for resources for victims and their communities, including mental health services, Yang said he aimed to ask lawmakers to publicly condemn the racist attacks.
He added that in order to prevent further incidents, there will need to be an educational effort to combat pervasive racial stereotypes, including “the model minority myth, the perpetual foreigner myth and in particular with respect to what happened in Atlanta, the sexualization of Asian women.”
Kulkarni of Stop AAPI Hate also said she would advocate Thursday for federal funding for local programs that provide direct support and case management to victims of hate incidents. She and Yang both said they would like to see a more developed federal civil rights infrastructure that would address discrimination that doesn’t rise to the level of a crime.
Biden Administration Outreach
The House Judiciary hearing is one piece of a larger federal response that Asian American leaders have been pushing for under an administration they see as more receptive to their concerns than Trump’s.
On Wednesday, President Biden said he was “making no connection” between the recent attacks on Asian Americans and the shootings in Atlanta and would wait to say more until an investigation from the FBI and Justice Department is completed.
“Whatever the motivation here, I know that Asian Americans are very concerned,” he said from the Oval Office. “As you know I’ve been speaking about the brutality against Asian Americans for the last couple months and I think it is very, very troublesome.”
In January, Biden signed a memorandum condemning racism and xenophobia against AAPI communities and in his first primetime address last week, he called out “vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans, who’ve been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated.”
Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation, attended a White House listening session for AAPI leaders earlier this month. She said that when Trump was in office, she would watch for a “spike in attacks” when someone from the White House used the term “China virus.” In comparison, Yoo said, the tone of Biden’s White House listening session was “surreal.”
“You can’t have one meeting and say OK, we heard you, we’re done,” she said. “But I think we walked away feeling like, ‘Wow, this is different.’ ”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that Biden’s domestic policy team and the Department of Justice are continuing to host listening sessions like the one Yoo attended.
On Friday, Biden and Vice President Harris will travel to Atlanta to meet with Asian American leaders there, postponing a political event that had been planned in the state.
Congressional Action
Rep. Meng and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, are also pushing for congressional action on violence targeting Asian Americans. Last week, they reintroduced a bill that would designate a Justice Department employee to take on an expedited review of hate crimes related to the pandemic.
The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act would also encourage state and local law enforcement agencies to establish online reporting of incidents in multiple languages, expand education campaigns and issue guidance on mitigating “racially discriminatory language” in describing the pandemic.
But Yoo and Kulkarni both warned before Thursday’s hearing that depending on law enforcement would not solve what they see as a larger racism problem.
“People are saying we need cops, but a lot of what is happening isn’t criminal,” Yoo said.