FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aasforum.org
Washington, DC—Last week, three Asian American teenagers were attacked in New York in two separate incidents. A 14-year-old Asian American boy was canvassing for a local candidate in Great Neck when a woman punched him and shouted racist insults at him. Two Asian American teens in Brooklyn were playing basketball when another young person’s father physically assaulted one of them, and assaulted the other and his father the next day after searching for him door-to-door. The Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF) has spoken out time and time again to condemn words and acts of hate against the Asian American community, and continues to do so as these devastating and racially-motivated attacks continue.
Gisela Perez Kusakawa, AASF Executive Director, issued the following statement:
“These violent, hateful, and racist attacks against young Asian Americans at the hands of adults are inexcusable. As we’ve seen repeated throughout history and still today, Asian Americans—even children—are made for convenient scapegoats. Between March and July of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate received 341 reports of anti-Asian discrimination involving youth; the following year, Act To Change reported that 13% of 3785 incidents of harassment and assault towards Asian Americans involved victims between the ages of 0 to 17 during the Spring of 2021. Young people should never be made afraid to go to and from school, play in the park, or engage in their communities—to simply be children. Asian Americans must not continue to be treated as threats and viewed as “perpetual foreigners” in our own country. We need to do better for the Asian American community and our youth, and address the underlying issues of these inherent biases against and scapegoating of Asian Americans.”
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Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF) is a national non-profit that promotes academic belonging, openness, freedom, and equality for all. In response to heightened anti-Asian sentiments and profiling in the U.S., AASF has been a leading national voice fighting for the rights of Asian American and immigrant scientists, researchers, and scholars. AASF membership includes members from the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, in addition to past and current university presidents, provost, vice provosts, deans, associate deans and past and current department chairs.