Responding to increases in hate crimes and harassment of Asians and Asian Americans, a national advocacy group has launched an online tool to allow people to report incidents of violence or harassment in 29 languages.
The goal is to collect data to better gauge incidences of anti-Asian violence nationwide to help inform policymakers and community leaders and to assist in framing legislation.
Joon Bang, former president and CEO of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA), said the tool was also made to uplift the voices of older members of AAPI communities.
It isn’t always easy for older people from Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities to report hate incidents, he said. “When you listen to our older adults, they come from a place of humility, so they’ll often say: ‘I don’t want you to spend the time or be concerned about what’s happening to me,’” Bang said.
It’s common, he added, for older, immigrant members of AAPI communities to feel guarded about sharing information. “Many of our older adults have this fear that if they do speak out or share information about what they’ve experienced, it could be used against them down the line,” Bang said.
In an effort to protect their safety and privacy, a feature of the online reporting form is a commitment to keeping the submitted information private.
The tool comes at a time when the nonprofit Orange County Human Relations Commission released its 2020 Hate Crimes Report that detailed an alarming rise in hate incidents in Orange County.
According to the report released Sept. 17, there was a 69% increase in the total number of hate incidents reported in 2020 versus 2019. Of the 263 reported cases, there was a 114% increase in antisemitic hate incidents, an 1,800% percent increase in anti-Asian incidents, and a 23% increase in anti-Black incidents. The report urges people to report crimes and harassment to local law enforcement agencies.
You can also report incidents using the NAPCA tool.
