On Tuesday, March 16, actor Carolina Do awoke to a barrage of texts from friends and family reacting to the murders of eight people—six of them of Asian descent—in Atlanta. Do remembered feeling “so alone, and feeling so scared,” she says. “And my first thought was like, ‘Oh my God, my mom, my sister. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t hug them. There’s so many people who feel that way. So many people who, like, this incident just revealed so many of their other fears that they’ve always had.”
So Do did two things that week: she hosted a Zoom gathering for Asian-Americans to process and grieve (more than 40 people showed up). And she helped organize a vigil with Asians for Abolition in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where they memorialized the lives that were lost and attendees shared their own stories of anti-Asian hate crimes (unfortunately, there were people who walked past shouting slurs at the group).
“We had a team in place of volunteers and after the vigil was over, we made sure that everyone who needed to be walked home was walked home,” says Do.
Do is not alone. Across the country, Asian American actors have reacted to the surge in anti-Asian violence around the country with activism.
Last month, Sandra Oh attended a Stop Asian Hate rally in Pittsburgh where she made an impassioned speech, saying, “I will challenge everyone here: If you see something, will you help me?” She continued, “We must understand, as Asian Americans, we just need to reach out our hand to our sisters and brothers and say, ‘Help me,’ and, ‘I am here.’ ” She then encouraged the crowd to chant, “I am proud to be Asian! I belong here!”
According to Stop AAPI Hate, there were 3,795 incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes that took place between March 2020 and Feb. 2021. Hate crimes against Asians rose 149% in 2020. Meanwhile, hate crime rates fell for many other ethnic groups.
On March 18, actor Daniel Dae Kim testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in a hearing about anti-Asian violence. In his testimony, he advocated in support of the No Hate Bill and the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which have both been introduced in the subcommittee. Both of these bills would provide money to organizations to help members of the Asian American and BIPOC community who are living in poverty, and to improve data collection for hate crime reporting.
Said Kim, “What happens right now and over the course of the coming months will send a message for generations to come as to whether we matter, whether the country we call home chooses to erase us or include us, dismiss us or respect us, invisibilize us or see us.”
Asian American performers are also calling the entertainment industry to task for its role in perpetuating stereotypes that dehumanize or erase Asian bodies. In a column for the Hollywood Reporter, Ronny Chieng wrote that Hollywood needs to go beyond tokenism when talking about diversity and give Asian Americans more decision-making power.
“What we need is diversity for the sake of authenticity,” he wrote. “We need diversity to more accurately portray society as we know it to be — a multiracial world with three-dimensional characters … For example, true stories about Asian American history would help make Asian contributions to the creation of America more widely known and help change ‘Yellow Peril’ sentiments that exist in America today, also partly due to negative storytelling.”
The same sentiment was expressed by some theater artists, who have called out their industry for marginalizing Asian voices.
The Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC), a group dedicated to advancing BIPOC visibility in theater, said that in the 2018–19 New York City theater season, Asian American actors were cast in only 6.3% of all roles, Asian American playwrights and musical theater writers made up 4.9% of writers produced, and Asian American directors were in charge of only 4.5% of productions.
“In our own industry, we have witnessed this same white supremacist narrative in the form of the exotification, dehumanization, and erasure of Asian men and women on America’s stages,” said AAPAC in a statement. “Words matter. Representation matters. The perpetuation of hideous and inaccurate stereotypes, only seeing our stories via a white lens, and removing us from the American narrative through exclusion are all directly connected and have their ramifications. They dehumanize us to the point that some believe we are expendable enough to further erase with cold-blooded murder.”
CAATA, the Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists, released a statement on March 24 denouncing white supremacy and challenging those who sign onto the statement to “take action to end white supremacy now.” The statement had almost 200 signatures in less than 24 hours. CAATA has also launched a social media campaign called #HadABadDay, where Asian-American performers are encouraged to share their stories of racism and xenophobia.
But just because Asian Americans are publicly condemning these racist attacks, and advocating for change doesn’t mean the work is easy. Do admits to being tired, especially because many activists are grieving at the same time that they’re calling for change, and providing resources for allies.
This is what Do tells people who ask her what they can do to help: “What you can do is go home and talk to your family members. Go and talk to your community members. Go home and talk to your racist cousin who makes those jokes that you laugh at, go home and interrogate the media that you watch that continues to dehumanize non-white bodies, and trans bodies and LGBTQ bodies. That’s where the problem is.”
On March 26, there will be a #StopAsianHate National Day of Action and Healing. More information, including a toolkit, is available at AsianAmericanDayofAction.com.