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Prominent Asian American lawmakers, scholars and advocates, including actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim, testified Thursday on the rise in hate crimes and discrimination against Asian Americans before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The hearing followed a string of hate crimes against Asian Americans, as well as three shootings at Atlanta-area spas on Tuesday in which eight people were killed. Six of the victims were Asian women. (Robinson, 3/18)

New York Democratic Rep. Grace Meng expressed the need for legislation she introduced along with Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie K. Hirono. That bill includes provisions to designate a point person at the Justice Department to expedite the review of violent hate crimes motivated by the actual or perceived relationship to the spread of COVID-19, and also seeks to ease reporting of such incidents. “Our community is bleeding. We are in pain, and for the last year we’ve been screaming out for help,” Meng testified. Previously, on the floor, Meng has said one-third of Americans witnessed someone blaming Asian Americans for the coronavirus and 8 of 10 Asian American-Pacific Islander youth reported bullying or harassment because of their race, and she cited attacks on elderly Asian Americans. (Ruger, 3/18)

The coronavirus is all over the headlines these days. Accompanying those headlines? Suspicion and harassment of Asians and Asian Americans. (3/19)

For Asian Americans, 2020 was a year of political success and newfound influence. But it was also a time of vulnerability to racist assaults. That painful dichotomy will be on display Friday when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to hold national office, visit Atlanta just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them Asian American women, in three metro-area massage businesses. The killings come after a spike of anti-Asian violence nationally. (Barrow, Lemire and Amy, 3/19)

As the coronavirus spread across the globe last February, the World Health Organization urged people to avoid terms like the “Wuhan virus” or the “Chinese virus,” fearing it could spike a backlash against Asians. President Donald Trump didn’t take the advice. On March 16, 2020, he first tweeted the phrase “Chinese virus.” That single tweet, researchers later found, fueled exactly the kind of backlash the WHO had feared: It was followed by an avalanche of tweets using the hashtag #chinesevirus, among other anti-Asian phrases. (Salcedo, 3/19)