Congressman Peter Welch, D-Vt., is urging his colleagues in the House to pass a bill that aims to combat hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Asian Americans have experienced a dramatic increase in hate crimes since the start of the pandemic. The legislation would help states create online reporting systems for hate crimes, expand public education campaigns about them and establish a new position in the Justice Department to expedite the processing of reports.
While the bill passed the Senate in a 94-1 vote, Welch said at a Monday morning press conference at the Burlington Airport that the legislation might meet resistance in his chamber as some of his Republican colleagues have gained reputations for downplaying racism in the country.
“The House is a strange place these days,” Welch said. “I was in the Oversight Committee last week, when one of my Republican colleagues was describing Jan. 6 as an ordinary visit of tourists to take a look at the Capitol and do selfies.”
“My hope is we’ll get very broad support in the House,” he added. “But we’ve got definitely a group of folks who continue to deny that Joe Biden is the freely elected president of the United States.”
The House is set to vote on the legislation sometime this week during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Mieko Ozeki, co-founder of women’s business advocacy group Vermont Womenpreneurs, and her family have been on edge since the pandemic began and stories of discrimination toward Asian Americans began to emerge, she said during the press conference.
Because Covid-19 originated in Wuhan, China, some have cast discriminatory blame on Asian Americans for the pandemic. Reports of Asian Americans being screamed at, spat on and racially profiled have increased over the past year. Former President Donald Trump referred to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus,” a phrase that many have criticized for attributing the pandemic to a nationality.
“My mother, the first thing when this virus came out, she called me and she goes, ‘Be prepared,’” Ozeki said. “It’s in our heads. We have a history. We might be wrangled. We might be taken out, excluded, whatever it may be.”
Paul Yoon, a senior adviser for Strategic Diversity Assessment and Research at the University of Vermont, said he’s recently heard stories about Asian American children in Vermont being told to stay away from other kids because of their race.
Stories of hate crimes against Asian American have kept him up at night. He spoke about the 65-year old Asian woman who was thrown to the ground and stomped on in New York City while her attacker yelled anti-Asian remarks this past March.
“Legislation like the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is an answer to the millions of pleas from people like me,” Yoon said, “who look to our nation’s leaders for protection and to ensure that our policies have equitable outcomes.”
