Anti-immigrant sentiment also seems to be feeding attacks upon Asian-Americans. A study found that there were 461 anti-Asian incidents reported in 1995 - 2% more than in 1994 and 38% more than in 1993. The violence of the incidents increased dramatically, with assaults rising by almost 11%, aggravated assaults by 14%, and two murders and one firebomb attack committed. The number and severity of the incidents increased significantly in the two largest states, California and New York.
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As with other minorities, violence against Asian-Americans feeds upon longstanding discrimination and contemporary tensions. Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian-Americans have been subjected to cycles of intolerance since they first arrived in the United States more than a century-and-a-half ago.
In the mines and on the railroads in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, Chinese-Americans were exploited as cheap labor by their employers and bitterly resented by other workers. Soon, the courts were treating Chinese-Americans as second-class citizens. In People v. Hall, the California Supreme Court prohibited people of Chinese descent from testifying in cases involving whites. This decision shielded whites from prosecution for crimes committed against Chinese-Americans. And it made Chinese-Americans even more vulnerable to violence and discrimination. For instance, in 1887 in Hells Canyon, Oregon, 31 Chinese gold miners were shot to death. Their six killers either escaped or were acquitted.
During the years before and during World War II, as Japan became the enemy of the United States, Japanese-Americans were treated as a threat to the nation. They were targeted for an unprecedented and egregious violation of civil rights - forcible relocation to internment camps, with complete disregard for their rights to due process. And, even though China was an ally of the United States, Chinese-Americans were also occasionally subject to hostility by whites who felt that all Asians were the enemy.
In recent decades, Asian Pacific Americans have been the targets of a range of resentments. Anti-Japanese
sentiments remaining from World War II have been exacerbated by the resentment of economic competition from Japan and, more recently, South Korea. Although they are likely to have supported the governments
of South Vietnam, Vietnamese immigrants have been the target of Americans' shame and anger at our defeat in the war in their native land.
Since those who tend towards intolerance are often unable to distinguish one national origin minority from another, these resentments have spilled over into hostility towards all Asian Pacific Americans. Meanwhile, for those who hate non-whites or fear immigrants and their children, Asian Pacific Americans are one more target for their free-floating rage. And these antagonisms have been aggravated by the stereotype of Asian Pacific Americans as "a model minority" - harder-working, more successful in school, and supposedly more affluent than most Americans. It is an image remarkably similar to the stereotype of Jews - a stereotype that fuels a mixture of admiration and resentment. In addition, some people do not accept Asian Pacific Americans as legitimate Americans viewing them as perpetual foreigners.
These examples illustrate the range of hate crimes against Asian Pacific Americans:
- A 19-year-old Vietnamese American pre-med student in Coral Springs, Fla., was beaten to death in August, 1992, by a mob of white youths who called him "chink" and "Vietcong."50
- On the afternoon of November 8, 1995, in the parking lot of a supermarket in Novato, California, Eddy Wu, a 23-year-old Chinese-American, was carrying groceries to his car when he was attacked by Robert Page, who stabbed him twice. Chasing Wu into the super market, Page stabbed him two more times. Wu suffered several serious injuries, including a punctured lung. In his confession, Page, an unemployed musician, said: "I didn't have anything to do when I woke up. No friends were around. It seemed that no one wanted to be around me. So I figured, "What the f- - I'm going to kill me a Chinaman."" He also said he wanted to kill an Asian because they "got all the good jobs." Page pleaded guilty to attempted murder and a hate crime, and was sentenced to eleven years.51
- In August 1995, at a nightclub in Orange, California, an Asian Indian male was struck in the head with a metal pipe during a confrontation with a group of skinheads.52
- In October 1995, in San Francisco, California, a white male dressed in skin head attire kicked a Pilipino male's leg, breaking his bone, and declared to him, "Death to all minorities."53
- On June 18, 1995, Thanh Mai, 23, and two other Vietnamese-American friends visited a teen nightclub in Alpine Township, Michigan. At one point during the evening, when he was sitting alone, Mai was accosted by three drunken young white men who taunted him, "What the f-- are you looking at, gook?" Mai tried to walk away, but one of the young men, Michael Hallman, hit him in the face. Mai fell to the cement floor with such force that his skull split open, sending him into convulsions. He died five days later from major head trauma. Hallman was tried in January, 1996, and sentenced to only two to fifteen years for manslaughter. The prosecuting attorney did not seek hate crime penalty enhancement, denying that adequate evidence existed under the existing statute.54
Attacks upon Arab-Americans:
Especially in times of crisis in the Middle East or during incidents of domestic terrorism, the two to three million Americans of Arab descent are vulnerable to hostility, harassment, and violence. But, because the federal government does not recognize Arab-Americans as a distinct ethnic group, the Justice Department does not report on how many hate crimes are committed each year against Arab-Americans.55
Arab-Americans suffer from being stereotyped as everything from exotic belly-dancers to desert nomads, terrorists, religious fanatics, and oil-rich sheiks. As with Jewish-Americans and Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans are often resented by residents of communities where they run small businesses. Arab Americans, many of whom are recent immigrants, must also deal with problems of nativism and anti-immigrant attitudes similar to that faced by Hispanics and Asian Americans. Too often, the media blame Arabs or Muslims for incidents to which they have no connection, such as the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City.56 In fact, at least 227 incidents of harassment of Muslims were reported in a three-day period following the Oklahoma City bombing.57
As with African-Americans and Jews, houses of worship are especially vulnerable. During 1995, at least seven mosques were burned down or seriously vandalized.58
Illustrative of the types of hate crimes directed against Arab-Americans are:
- In Aurora, Colorado, a campus chapter of the American Arab Discrimination Committee received threatening letters and telephone calls as it sought to organize an "Arab Awareness Week." In an apparent effort to discourage the effort, the president of the chapter was assaulted on campus by two individuals.59
- In Oklahoma City, following the bombing of the federal office building, an Iraqi refugee in her mid 20s, miscarried her near-term baby after an April 20th attack on her home. Unknown assailants pounded on the door of her home, broke windows and screamed anti-Islamic epithets.60
Attacks upon Gays and Lesbians:
Attacks upon gays and lesbians are increasing in number and in severity. During 1995, 2,212 attacks on lesbians and gay men were documented by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs - an 8% increase over 1994.61
More alarmingly, these attacks are becoming more violent. Nearly 40% of total incidents in 1995 involved physical assaults or attempted assaults with a weapon. These incidents resulted in injuries to 711 victims. Thirty-seven percent - 265 - of the people who were injured suffered serious injury or death. Of the victims who were injured, 38% received medical treatment in an emergency room or on an out-patient basis, 10% were hospitalized, and 19% needed, but did not receive, medical attention.62
Worst of all, there were 29 gay-related murders. Most murders were accompanied by hideous violence including mutilation.
A sense of the brutality of the attacks can be conveyed by describing the weapons involved. In assaults involving weapons, bottles, bricks, and rocks were the most frequently used weapons, followed by bats, clubs, and blunt objects. Knives and other sharp objects were a close third.
Gays and lesbians seem most at risk of attack when there is emotionally charged political debate and heightened media coverage about their rights and their role in society. In recent years, these issues have been raised in the controversies over gays in the military, gay marriage, and referenda in Oregon, Colorado, Maine, and other states and local communities. As with controversies about affirmative action and immigration, debates about gay/lesbian issues often demonize the members of minorities already subject to discrimination.
As with African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities, gays and lesbians often feel isolated and vulnerable because of the difficult relationship between their communities and many police departments. That is one reason why the rate of reporting incidents of violence against gays and lesbians to the police - an estimated 36% in 1995 - is significantly less than the estimated reporting rate of 48% for all crimes. Moreover, even when victims reported an incident to the police and stressed its biased nature, more than half the time police failed to classify the incidents as bias-motivated.63
These incidents from 1995 are examples of the kinds of crimes committed against gays and lesbians:
- In Jackson Heights, New York, a 24-year-old gay man who was distributing HIV-related information was assaulted with a knife by a 17- year-old man. The victim suffered a severe cut on his elbow requiring medical attention. The perpetrator repeatedly referred to the victim as "faggot." The case is being prosecuted by the District Attorney's office as a bias crime.64
- In Washington, D.C., three men accosted a gay man walking in a park and, at gun-point, forced him to go under a bridge. There, they beat him viciously. Before losing consciousness, he heard one of his assailants say, "We're going to teach this f--ing faggot a lesson!"65
- In Minneapolis, Minnesota, soon after moving to a new apartment, an African-American lesbian found a note reading "Hate Nigger Faggots" at her door. Over the next several weeks, she and her child were the target of verbal slurs from their neighbors, including: "You dyke," "you faggot," and "you nigger." After a burned cross was left outside her door, she moved.66
Another sexual minority that is subject to violence is "transgendered" people, an umbrella term that includes transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersexed people (also known as hermaphrodites), and others whose sexual identity appears ambiguous. Transgendered people have been assaulted, raped, or murdered; these crimes should be included in the Hate Crime Statistics Act.
Attacks upon Women - cause for concern and for classification as hate crimes:
In recent years, many women's advocates have spoken out about the alarming rate of violent physical and sexual assaults against women. Although the most common forms of violence against women have traditionally been viewed as "personal attacks," or even the victim's "own fault," there is growing recognition that, as one woman's advocate testified before Congress: "women and girls....are exposed to terror, brutality, serious injury, and even death because of their sex."
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Society is beginning to realize that many assaults against women are not "random" acts of violence but are actually bias-related crimes. However, the Hate Crime Statistics Act was passed, signed into law, and recently reauthorized without including hate crimes against women as a class.68 Other federal laws and many state hate crime statutes also exclude bias crimes targeting women.69
This is wrong - and should be corrected. As with hate crimes against racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, hate crimes against women are a form of discrimination. Gender-motivated violence reflects some men's efforts to dominate and control women. These crimes are encouraged by stereotypes of what women are and how women should act.70 And these crimes are often accompanied by hateful epithets against women as a group of people.
To be sure, not every violent assault against a woman is a hate crime - just as not every crime against an African-American is based on bigotry. And, men as well as women face robbery on the street and burglary in the home. However, crimes that present evidence of bias against women should be considered hate crimes. And, with these crimes, society should look for identifying factors similar to those present in other hate crimes.
These factors may include evidence of sexual assault, and the extreme brutality and cruelty that characterize bias-related crimes.71 Many crimes against women reflect a resistance to their efforts to achieve equality. These crimes are often intended to intimidate women into staying in - or returning to - their "place" of subservience to men at home, in the workplace, and throughout society.
Women of color experience discrimination based on gender as well as race, national origin, religion, language and sexual orientation. These forms of discrimination are not always separable.72 And, without protections against gender-based attacks, such women's unique experiences of intersecting forms of prejudice cannot be fully recognized - or remedied.
Because women as a class are not covered by the Hate Crime Statistics Act, the FBI keeps no records of gender-based hate crimes. Thus, there are no federal government surveys of hate crimes against women. However, statistics gathered on rapes and domestic assaults demonstrate the pervasiveness of violence against women. Approximately 683,000 adult women are raped each year.73 And, between 1992 and 1993, current and former husbands and other current and former intimate partners committed more than a million assaults, rapes, and murders against women.74
Some studies do attempt to identify the number of violent assaults against women that may be motivated by gender bias. For instance, in Arkansas, a mostly rural state with a population of 2.3 million, 81 women were murdered in 1990 in cases where robbery was not a motive, according to the Arkansas Women's Project.75 Some were raped and killed. Others were murdered with extreme cruelty and disfigurement.
Examples of crimes that are committed against women because they are women include:
- In Massachusetts in 1994, a "serial batterer" - a man who repeatedly sexually assaulted women with whom he lived - was found to have violated the state's hate crime law for his bias crimes against women. Four women recounted his abuse, including severe physical battering, rape, death threats, and constant verbal abuse.76 In addition, He called the women "whores," "bitches," and "sluts," and made derogatory comments that they - and all women - are weaker than men and not as smart as men.77
- In Arkansas, a woman was found stabbed approximately 130 times in the breasts, vagina, buttocks, both eyes and forehead, two days after her second wedding anniversary. Her husband was charged with the murder.78
