BARRE — At a City Council meeting last fall, Marichel Vaught described how, as an Asian American woman living in this mostly white central Vermont city, the act of walking down Barre’s Main Street without her white husband struck fear into her.
That fear, Vaught said, stems from a pattern of racist harassment she has experienced that is familiar to Asian American Vermonters — from passersby mocking her with fake accents to business owners ignoring her presence in stores.
“A lot of these things that have happened to me, I’ve put away and have not thought about,” Vaught said. “But in the last couple of months, they’ve come back up.”
As Asian American/Pacific Islander communities around the country face mounting hate crimes and Vermont officials have been slow to speak out in support of the state’s Asian American residents, Vaught — a member of Barre’s diversity and equity committee — drafted a resolution condemning acts of anti-Asian hate there. It was approved by the City Council Tuesday.
In passing the resolution, the council “condemns and denounces any and all anti-Asian sentiment in any form and will not tolerate acts of aggression against Asian community members by any Barre City employee or agent thereof,” the document reads.
The measure is one of few solidarity efforts to be extended toward Vermont’s Asian American community by city or state officials after a white gunman killed eight people — including six Asian American women — in the Atlanta, Georgia, area two weeks ago.
Since then, Asian American Vermonters have seen that media outlets, state government and their own towns have been slow to publicly condemn the violence. Gov. Phil Scott did not join 23 other governors last week in signing a letter to condemn anti-Asian racism, and Vaught was not aware of other cities or towns in Vermont, other than Burlington, moving to approve a similar anti-hate resolution, she said.
Barre’s resolution is a small measure toward providing recognition — and support — to residents that’s been missing, Vaught said.
“I’m surprised that there hasn’t been” more of an official statement from the state, she said, “at a time when I’m seeing more and more anti-Asian violence in the country every day.”
A radical past
Barre City has been embroiled in a debate over systemic racism’s place in the city for the past year.
After George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police last May, Barre City Councilors and residents debated for months whether to hoist the Black Lives Matter flag in front of City Hall. They eventually reached the unusual compromise of raising the BLM flag for 30 days and the “thin blue line” banner — a pro-police flag commonly used as a counter to racial justice advocacy — for the following month.
On Tuesday, Vaught’s measure condemning anti-Asian hate passed the council unanimously, with the support of four newly elected progressive councilors and a lone, more conservative holdover from the previous council.
Voting to approve the resolution “was an easy decision,” Councilor Michael Boutin said. Boutin proposed a recently passed change to Barre’s city charter barring unofficial flags from flying on city property, which he called a way to resolve the monthslong Black Lives Matter flag debate.
“We have community members that are of Asian descent,” Boutin said of the anti-hate resolution. “And I don’t think it hurts to let people know that their council doesn’t support that [hateful] activity.”
The show of solidarity might not have been achievable for racial justice advocates under past councils, said Joelen Mulvaney, chair of the diversity and equity committee. Though Barre residents tend to avoid inserting political labels into city politics, residents agree that past councils have leaned more conservative.
Ahead of this year’s Town Meeting Day, one council candidate went so far as to claim that systemic racism doesn’t exist in the city because he “didn’t see it,” in response to the experiences of racism Vaught described at the fall council meeting.
Still, anyone familiar with Barre’s history would be well-acquainted with the city’s capacity for progressive action, according to Mulvaney. The community has failed to include newcomers in the past, Mulvaney said, but it also has a long history of union organizing and radically progressive politics.
“Not only have we had a diverse population in the past, but we’ve also had a very radical past,” Mulvaney said.
After observing a lack of support for Black, Indigenous and people of color in the area, Vaught said, she helped plan a new group for people of color in central Vermont to gather and offer support for one another.
The group will begin meeting shortly, she said.
“I’ve experienced this not just in Vermont, not just in Barre,” Vaught said, describing instances of anti-Asian racism. “I’ve experienced this everywhere I’ve lived — even in places that were diverse. People are like, ‘Well, why did you come to Vermont?’ Because I love Vermont for its small community. And there are great things that are happening here to improve equity.”