The Defiant
Concerned Asian American Citizens of New York City (CAACNYC) on their platform and reasons to fight the good fight
CAACYNC is an organization focused on spreading awareness about Asian American discrimination and fighting anti-Asian rhetoric and hate. CAACYNC’s advocacy initiatives have been covered by United Press International, World Journal, China Press, and Sing Tao.
We sat down to speak with the founders of CAACYNC on their mission, projects, and what keeps them going in their fight for equality and justice.
What is CAACNYC? Why did you create this organization?
Concerned AsAm Citizens of New York City was established in April 2020 by three women to create change through grassroots efforts to empower Asian Americans and to stand up against hate. As hate crimes and bias incidents surged in the city, Judy Ng, Shirley Ng and Barbara Yau, who are administrators of their own Facebook Groups focused on Asian issues, formed a partnership to take action rather than just talk about it.
How has coronavirus impacted the Asian American community in New York City?
Due to the unfair blaming of Asians for the coronavirus, Asian Americans stores and restaurants, especially those Chinese owned, began to see the significant drop in business at the onset of the virus in the country. Also, attacks and harassment of Asian Americans increased exponentially in the city.
We believe that the racist rhetoric coming from our president and his administration, as well as other leaders, stoked the flame and directly contributed to racist incidents across the country. Many Asians around the world also have been harassed or attacked.
What are initiatives you have been working on? What are some future projects?
We created a “Don’t be Cruel” PSA campaign in an effort to deter crime and empower Asians to report the crimes and incidents. In late May, we engaged about 40 volunteers including members of the Guardian Angels and distributed these PSA posters to over 200 businesses throughout Chinatown and put them up on their storefronts.
If you walk through Chinatown now, it is likely that you will see these posters up and around. We also had a peaceful march in Chinatown chanting, “Stop the Violence, Stop the Hate!”
Our recent campaign on June 27, “Asians Are Not A Virus,” was a message writing campaign, a reaction to Trump’s use of the racist slur “Kung Flu” at his campaign rally in Tulsa, OK and Phoenix, AZ. We had passersby in Manhattan Chinatown write on our many Don’t Be Cruel posters to tell Trump to stop the racist rhetoric that may continue to lead his supporters to display anti-Asian hate and xenophobia towards Asians.
We had a lot of support with over 100 people participating. This was an impactful event to show Trump that Asian Americans will not tolerate his racist behavior. We are sending the posters to him at the White House this week and have just produced a video clip of photos of our event that we are emailing to Congress Member Grace Meng (D-NY), who is also the first Vice-Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus in Washington DC to let them know of our efforts.
Our next event will be July 25th (raindate July 26). We will continue our distribution of posters to businesses in Chinatown, and we will also start to share our anti-hate message to the public outside of the Chinatown area. We plan to distribute anti-hate posters, flyer and stickers to the public during our march from Columbus Park in Chinatown to Washington Square Park in the West Village.
We are also working on a new collaboration to further protect Asian Americans in New York City who may be afraid when going out due to fear of hateful attacks and harassment.
What are some challenges you have faced and how were you able to overcome them?
At first, we were unsure whether Asian Americans would come out to participate in our campaign. In the past, Asian Americans have not been as engaged in activism as other groups, so it was a concern. Fortunately, we were able to receive a good amount of support and interest from the public and the press. People including local politicians made generous in-kind donations and showed public support. We hope that our campaign and message will inspire groups across the country to do similar work in their own communities. We hope Asian Americans don’t forget that we still have a lot of work to do, even as things seems to go back to “normal.”
What are your hopes for the future in a post-pandemic world?
Educating people and building awareness are essential to combating hate. We need to communicate our message to all people of all ages and get media and influential individuals including politicians and come community leaders to magnify these issues at every opportunity. We have to encourage people to stand up against hate crimes and bias incidents whenever they see or hear it. We also encourage victims of hate and bias crimes to report the incident in a timely matter to protect not just themselves, but the entire community and to receive justice where justice is due. Most importantly, we need to engage our Asian American brothers and sisters to participate and be vocal on issues related to hate against Asians, Blacks and all people of color.
When we fight for all, we all win.
