Hunter
03/22/21
Community leaders gathered with University of Iowa students Sunday afternoon for a vigil to honor the victims of last week’s Atlanta shootings.
Six of the victims were Asian women, prompting the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center to host the vigil at the Pentacrest. Vigils and protests were held across the nation because of the tragedy. The suspect, a 21-year-old white man, claimed his sex addiction caused the rampage, but many see the event as the result of racism against Asian women.
The Daily Iowan talked with Kayla Nguyen, a student at the UI, at the vigil. She said the suspect “didn’t even want to address them as Asian women, he just said, ‘They’re temptations and they’re my addiction, but it is not racist.’ And that’s what we have been seeing lately, and people are just blaming it on that. It’s ultimately dehumanizing Asian women.”
There has been a spike in attacks on Asians since the coronavirus pandemic began. The DI cited a report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism which showed a 149 percent increase in Anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020 in 16 of America’s largest cities.
Over 200 students, families and supporters attended the vigil.