(Jewish Group) Raising Asian Jewish kids in the US has never been scarier
On Tuesday, eight people were killed — including six women of Asian descent — at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area. The gunman has been identified as a 21-year-old white man from Woodstock, Georgia. This horrifying shooting came at a time of alarming xenophobia and bigotry against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the start of COVID-19, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by 1,900% in the United States, with women reporting 2.3 times more hate incidents than men. Experts have blamed this troubling uptick in Asian hate crimes, in part, on Donald Trump’s dangerous rhetoric, with the former president using damaging terms such as “China virus” and “kung flu” to refer to COVID-19.
The details surrounding the Atlanta tragedy are continuing to develop, as more information regarding the victims and gunman are being released. Despite the fact that the majority of the victims were Asian women, the motivation behind the massacre is still to be determined.
I am an Asian-American Jewish woman living in Los Angeles. My parents emigrated from Taiwan in the 1970s, and my twin sister and I were born in Los Angeles in the 1980s. I converted to Judaism three years ago, before my second child was born, a decision that was many years in the making. My husband and I are raising our two Asian-American Jewish preschool-aged children in Los Angeles.
more...
