What Does It Mean To Be American

There’s an Asians@ group at my company for all Asian identifying employees to join. We have fun (virtual) cooking classes, share Asian-related news, and talk about our favorite parts of being Asian. Today, that Slack channel was quiet, save for a few heartbreaking messages about the terrorist attack by a white supremacist against Asian women in Atlanta.

When I was first invited to the group, to be honest my initial thought was “do we really need a separate channel and group for this?”. I’m very loud and proud about my Indian background and love meeting other people with similar life experiences. But I always thought our struggles were no where near what our Black or LGBTQ+ friends endure, so we probably didn’t need to be supported in the same ways. With the rise in xenophobic comments and targeted crime against Asian people in the last year, I’m beginning to understand why more than I ever wanted to.

My first thought when I hear about a racially motivated hate crime is, “Do I or my family have to be scared?”. In recent times, no. But there was a time not that long ago that the answer was yes. After the 9/11 attack, hate crimes against South Asians and Brown people spiked to unimaginable levels. Ask your Brown friend if they or their family has ever experienced a hate crime or microaggression around that time and I can guarantee you that they have. People were attacked at work, walking on the street, in their own homes. Back then, we didn’t have Instagram or Twitter and thus weren’t able to bring rapid attention to these violent…