‘We see you. We love you.’ Candlelight vigil in uptown Charlotte honors Asian lives
Candles flames flickered in the spring breeze Sunday evening at Marshall Park as voices rang out.
“We see you, we love you,” the crowd chanted. “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe.”
Around 150 people gathered in uptown Charlotte to show solidarity with and honor the Asian community, joining thousands of Americans protesting across the country following recent deadly shootings in Atlanta.
Eight people were shot dead at three Atlanta-area spas last Tuesday. All but one of the victims were women, and six were of Asian descent. The suspect in the shootings is a 21-year-old white man.
During the coronavirus pandemic, hate crimes nationally against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders increased 150 percent, according to a study by Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. A study from University of California, San Francisco says former President Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric has fueled anti-Asian sentiment.
Many of those anti-Asian hate incidents — including shunning, slurs and attacks — are directed specifically at Asian women, the Cal State study says. They’re more than twice as likely to be victims of hate, and hate crimes aren’t the only indicators of the violence Asian-American people experience.
The issue is intersectional, experts and advocates say — Asian women, especially those who are working class, are fetishized and oversexualized. Organizers of Sunday night’s vigil denounced the narrative that the Atlanta shooter’s supposed sex addiction fueled the rampage.
“They had excuses for this guy, but it’s all racist,” said Tin Nguyen of the Charlotte social justice group SEAC Village.
Kim Kean, who is Chinese-Cambodian and attended the event to show solidarity with the community, said injustices against Asian people have been going on for a long time — especially against women.
“I think specifically as it relates to Asian women, unfortunately, the media plays a hand in that,” she said. “If you look at how we’ve been portrayed in entertainment, the oversexualization of women, the stereotype that Asian women are submissive or subservient... that has existed for much too long and you’ve seen it perpetuated and gotten worse as time has gone on.”
SEAC Village organized Sunday’s event, which kicked off with a meditation exercise and a moment of silence for the eight people killed in Atlanta — Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng.
“Close your eyes,” SEAC’s Sam Xiong said to the silent crowd, leaves rustling on the ground. “Think of your loved ones.”
Cat Le of SEAC Village implored the crowd not to see Asian hate as a symptom of the country’s former administration, but as a systemic issue traced to the white supremacy America is founded on.
She cited the recent deportation of 33 Vietnamese refugees and spoke of her experience as an Asian woman from a Vietnamese refugee family.
“I feel a lot of anger,” she said. “I don’t know any Asian femme, in organizing or not, that does not have their own story of sex work, or being asked for it, or taking part in it, or working with those that have. That tells you about the white supremacy and objectification that so many workers face — not just here, globally.”
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, during a news conference last week, said there has been no local rise in anti-Asian hate crimes or increased threats, which Le said erases the community and the violence they experience.
“In this system of white supremacy, they don’t see us,” Nguyen said. “The police are never the answer.”
The history of policing is rooted in racism, Nguyen said, and the generational trauma Asian people have experienced in this country and abroad is a result of white supremacy.
“When we came here, where’d they put us? Wherever,” he said. “Because we’re nothing but labor.”
The Asian American and Pacific Islanders of NC and the NAACP’s Charlotte branch plan to host a “Stop the Hate” rally at noon Saturday at Marshall Park.
Sunday’s candlelight vigil ended with a song and remarks from the crowd. Natalie Cheuk, a middle school teacher of Asian descent, spoke about teaching her students about American history this week, all while dealing with the emotional trauma of the shooting.
“On the day of the shooting, I felt really invisible,” she said to faces only lit by candles, the sun long having set. “I wasn’t able to process that pain... and I can’t get away from it.”
The crowd responded, “We see you. We love you.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
