To some, like the white supremacist who murdered 6 Asian American women in the past 24 hours in Atlanta as a hate-crime, I am still not an American and may never be American enough. My passport, citizenship, education, service, allyship, and entrepreneurship does not protect the women in my family or me from harm. The knowledge that my body is the target for violence is not the America my family crossed the seas for. I still love this country and see its promise in where we go from here.

Our elders being lit on fire, punched in the face when they cross the street, and screamed at to leave the country for merely existing. This is now our lived experience. While the Asian American community is not a monolith and we have a very complicated history with the systems of data gathering in this country — the impact is our humanity has become amorphous, without shape, form, difficult to define, and easily labeled a “China-disease” no matter where we are born or raised, what our respective histories are, or what our individual humanity provides. What currently unites us now as a community is a shared pain, suffering, and fear for the safety of our bodies, our well-being, our mental health, and our ability to continue.

How To Show Up As An Ally

It’s essential to name these killings for what they are — hate crimes. This current moment of hate in America is another opportunity for intersectionality: our struggles are intertwined — any form of hate or oppression impacts the well-being and health of our democracy, and we must continue to fight for it.

  1. Step in, show up, and call what the killings are — a hate crime.
  2. Check-in with your co-worker, friend, neighbor. Ask how they’re doing, ask what they need, send them a love note.
  3. Support your local businesses in your respective Chinatown/International Districts. A great way to support Chinatowns/Little Saigons/Japantown/Koreatowns across the country is to donate to their economic development organizations.
  4. Read Asian American authors, and read up on Asian American history.
  5. Subscribe and follow Asian American media, journalists, authors, organizations, accounts.

Read the full article about allyship for Asian communities by Mỹ Tâm H. Nguyễn at Medium.