NYS Senator John Liu (Photo: Facebook)
Feb. 18, 2022 By Allie Griffin
State Sen. John Liu and local Asian American groups are calling for increased state funding to support Asian New Yorkers who have increasingly been the target of violent—and even deadly—hate crimes.
Liu wants the state to allocate $64.5 million to support community-based organizations that provide services for Asian New Yorkers and/or educational efforts to combat discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that has risen since the onset of the pandemic.
“The AAPI community is under siege,” Liu said in a statement to the Queens Post. “For the last two years, we have been the target of relentless hatred, bigotry, and violence, and we desperately need resources that would address the root cause of these attacks and support our community.”
The proposed funding would be more than six times the amount the state earmarked for such groups last year. In April, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature created a $10 million fund to provide grants to Asian American nonprofits to help address a rise in bias attacks against the AAPI community.
Despite the creation of the fund, Asian New Yorkers have continued to be victims of hate crimes in the city at an alarming rate. Hate crimes targeting Asian New Yorkers increased by 363 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to NYPD data.
In one case, a 61-year-old Chinese man died on Dec. 31 of injuries he sustained when he was randomly assaulted by a homeless man in an East Harlem bias attack in April. The suspect was charged with murder and assault as a hate crime.
In another case, a 61-year-old Asian woman was randomly beaten unconscious with a large rock by a stranger in North Corona on Nov. 26. The NYPD is re-investigating the assault as a possible hate crime.
Most recently, a 35-year-old Korean American woman Christina Yuna Lee was followed home and stabbed to death inside her Manhattan apartment by a homeless man early Sunday. She was killed about a month after a 40-year-old Asian American woman was fatally shoved in front of a subway car at Times Square.
However, police have not classified either murder as a hate crime. Nonetheless, many Asian New Yorkers are left living in fear, Asian leaders said.
“The past weeks have been traumatizing as we’ve marked multiple attacks against #AAPI New Yorkers across the City, most recently Christina Yuna Lee,” Council Member Linda Lee posted on Twitter Tuesday. “Despite our anger and fear, we cannot give in to divisiveness but must work to implement real solutions that keep all of us safe.”
The Asian American Federation, one of the groups demanding additional funding, is calling on officials to come up with solutions to combat the attacks.
“After two years of relentless hate directed at our communities all of us advocates are exhausted,” the organization tweeted Tuesday. “Our hearts have been broken by what is happening in our City. But we will not rest until we get the answers and the resources our communities so desperately need.”
Liu said the extra state funding would directly support organizations embedded in Asian communities and would help cover the cost of mental health, language and education programs.
“This extra state funding would go directly to the organizations that work on the ground every day with affected AAPI communities and would address everything from mental health services to the implementation of AAPI curriculum to language access,” Liu said.
Featured Events
27 Comments
As a human being I am outraged by the violence against Asians.
1. Don’t blame the rhetoric from Trump. Trump was a lousy person and a lousy President and that’s why he’s out of office after one term. But the facts are that the virus came from China. Whether it came because of their filthy, disgusting markets or their nauseating habit of eating every animal that breathes or some experiment in a lab that went wrong it was their fault! And they sure made every effort to cover up the evidence or blame things on someone else.
As a white man I am outraged that I am sharing the blame for these horrific attacks. Whether in California or NYC it is black people carrying out these attacks. Put the blame where it belongs.
That’s ridiculous!
Joy Won should be more vocal about stoping Asian hate crimes and attacks.
Correction…Julie Won
She is a liberal progressive. She will speak out but not out the blame where it belongs.
Most of the crimes, looting of the high end department stores, most of the shootings are against their own people, most of the gun violence, look at NYC subways and images of the perpetrators and where are our so called civil rights leaders and activists who don’t come forward to denounce the violence? This has to stop. Crime is crime, we need to all come together to fight the disorder in which we are living and put everything in place. Our politicians are afraid to stand for what is right or just be politically correct? There is a lot of envy against the Asians community who through hard work, education and being industrious, many recent arrivals in this country, have climbed the socio-economic ladder and left people of color in the dust. Ignorance leads to hatred. Afraid the summer of 2022 in NYC will be the wild Wild West, we will have riots, chaos and mayhem on our streets.
That would be money would be better spent on keeping the child tax credits around. People are desperate and now stealing baby formula.
BS Samantha. My father was unemployed with no skills when I was born and he never stole anything. Crime is just accepted in certain cultures.
Don’t have kids you if you can’t afford it and rely on other people to pay for it. It’s called social responsibility.
why is it everyone’s problem that these people have kids they cant afford? you do the crime, you do the time.
I saw someone stealing 15 cans of cat food the other day. Its all so sad. The future will be grocery shopping online so markets will not lose money and then we will worry about packages being stolen from our front doors.
How about fighting ALL crime and not just crimes against your own people?
This is the reason why racism exists. Extinguish ALL hate crimes, not just the ones you want!!!
The mayor cried about the rapper being shot and said we have a perception of fear after the lady was pushed onto an upcoming train.
Governor Hochul is sending $10M to assist New York’s Asian American community groups.
Hate crimes targeting Asian New Yorkers increased by 363 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to NYPD data. If you read the article, you wouldn’t be so offended.
Hire your own security like LIC does. Now they have one of the most expensive areas to live in in WQs. People flocked there for safety.
Asians have the right to speak out but put the blame where it belongs. Some cultures in this country accept crime and violence others don’t. People are afraid to speak the truth for fear of being called a racist and having their lives ruined.
The AAPI community is under attack by Black people. Don’t blame everyone because you want to be politically correct. Let the Black community acknowledge this problem and stop being victims.
And TBH, most of the culprits in the case of anti Asian hate crimes are from your precious 13%.
Sometimes the oppressed turn into the oppressor in order to survive. White supremacy wins when you point that out.
Gia:
What you say makes no sense.
thats fine. words mean nothing nowadays. what we need is a ton of armed vigilantes and cops making sure they show up late to the call. when push comes to shove, its time to fight back instead of constantly being the victim.
All the violent hate crimes against Asians have been by Black men. Face the facts and stop dancing around the problem of crime, violence and racism in the Black community.
fight back! conceal and carry!
Tough talk from a baby that can’t watch a video of someone getting run over 😆
You have a bloodthirsty itch that will only get scratched with a lobotomy.
Get help.