'We will not let you take our voice from us': Rep. Meng responds to Republicans at hearing on anti-Asian discrimination

WASHINGTON – Asian American lawmakers have sounded the alarm on derisive language about the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic more than a year ago. And in Thursday's hearing on anti-Asian violence and discrimination, Congress' first on the issue in more than 30 years and just days after a shooting in Atlanta left six Asian Americans dead, one Democratic lawmaker gave an emotional plea to end the use of divisive language. 

"Our community is bleeding. We are in pain. And for the last year, we've been screaming out for help," Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., said before a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee.

Responding to Republican lawmakers' arguments that the focus on hate crimes could hamper free speech, Meng told lawmakers they could criticize other countries, but "you don't have to do it by putting a bull's-eye on the back of Asian Americans across the county, on our grandparents, on our kids."

Getting visibly emotional, Meng said, "This hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community, to find solutions. And we will not let you take our voice from us."

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Earlier in the hearing, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, asked whether the committee's attempts to prevent hate crimes and hate incidents against Asian Americans would hamper free speech.

"It seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society," he said of the hearing, though he said he opposed hate crimes and wanted justice to be served for the perpetrator of the shooting in Atlanta that left eight people dead, six of whom were Asian or Asian American. 

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., the top Democrat on the panel holding the hearing, countered, "Being spat at, slapped in the face, lit on fire, slashed with a box cutter, and shoved violently to the ground ... that's not speech." 

Asked about the question of free speech, one of the expert witnesses, John Yang, president and executive director of the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said leaders had an "obligation to model behavior that we want our community to follow'" instead of trying to be divisive.

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Asian American advocates and lawmakers had long warned that rhetoric by political leaders including former President Donald Trump about COVID-19 could inflame discrimination against Asian Americans. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, noted how more than a year ago her group “began to sound the alarm” on anti-Asian stigma amid the pandemic. What started as “dirty looks and verbal assaults” escalated to attacks and violence against Asian Americans and now, almost a "daily tragedy," she said. 

She was part of a group of lawmakers, advocates and experts on anti-Asian discrimination testifying Thursday. The hearing had been scheduled before the shooting in Atlanta, but the tragedy there made the hearing even more important, witnesses said. 

"What we know is that this day was coming," Chu said. 

Chu called on Congress to take action on two pieces of legislation – the NO HATE Act and the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act – both of which aimed to improve hate crimes reporting. She also asked for a national day to speak out against anti-Asian hate to be held on March 26. 

Asian American lawmakers introduced legislation addressing the issue in the last Congress, but other than the House's passage of a nonbinding resolution condemning anti-Asian bigotry and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic, no legislation was signed into law. 

Actor and advocate Daniel Dae Kim made an appeal to Republican lawmakers, the majority of whom had voted against the nonbinding resolution. 

"I wonder, will the 164 members of the House who refused to acknowledge us last fall, do so again, canceling the humanity of an entire community of Americans?" he said. 

Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group tracking hate incidents, said it has received nearly 3,800 reports of hate incidents across the country since March 2020, compared with roughly 100 incidents a year in previous years. 

The group's co-founder, Manjusha Kulkarni, told lawmakers Thursday that the majority of the incidents recorded by her group did not involve a hate crime but found the level of verbal harassment and abuse reported by Asian Americans in public spaces "worrisome."