CALIFORNIA – A Filipino-American mayor and two Fil-Am community organizations here are leading the push back against hate crime affecting not only Filipinos but other races in the Asian region.
In Daly City, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, the local government has closely worked with the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) and Filipino Community Center (FCC), two organizations that advocate for issues affecting Fil-Ams including Asian hate crime.
The city mayor, Juslyn Manalo, has Filipino roots. Her parents hail from Batangas and Laguna. She was born in San Francisco but her family moved to Daly City when she was just eight years old.
Early in her career, she became a community service worker providing direct service to the Filipino World War II Veterans. She managed a program called the Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP) which helped low to moderate income families find, defend and sustain their housing.
In 2016, Manalo became the mayor of Daly City, which is also a sister city of Quezon City.
In an interview with select Filipino journalists on a reporting tour on Monday, April 29 (US time), Manalo said that Asian hate crime was prevalent in California during the Covid-19 pandemic and it remains a “big thing” in the Bay Area.
“It’s unchanged [until now],” she said.
California has recorded an increase in the number of anti-Asian hate crimes especially during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Data from the California Department of Justice (DOJ) showed that the number of reported anti-Asian hate crime in California rose from 43 cases in 2019 to 89 in 2020, marking a 107-percent increase.
It said the highest number of anti-Asian hate crime events reported to the California DOJ occurred in March and April 2020 just as California declared a state of emergency to curb the spread of Covid-19. The most common type of violent crimes were simple assault and intimidation.
The latest anti-Asian hate crime in California was recorded on March 28 when a Chinese man was attacked in the downtown area of Hakwins Street, Vallejo, California – around 40 miles from Daly City. Meanwhile, a Fil-Am couple was attacked early 2023 in Sacramento.
NAFCON national officer Charles Ramilo and FCC acting executive director Elaine Dizon said the Daly City government partnered with them and other local organizations to implement various programs such as education and information campaigns to raise awareness against Asian hate crime, as well as to promote the Filipino heritage.
“Community members were concerned because it’s not just a Filipino issue, it concerns the safety of the community. We don’t want anyone experiencing that [Asian hate crime],” Ramilo said.
The NAFCON and FCC conducted an anti-Asian hate crime campaign in partnership with Chinese-American organizations to promote multi-ethnic solidarity in Daly City.
A series of self-defense workshops for Filipino young women and elderly was also held by the Fil-Am community organizations in partnership with a local church to teach them how to defend themselves against potential attackers.
Why the hate?
The rise in the number of anti-Asian hate crime during the pandemic was associated with the origin of the Covid-19, according to Ramilo.
“It was just associated with Asian descent being the cause which we know, scientifically, isn’t. But that’s why we also try to educate the people about proper health care,” he said.
For Dizon, she believes the motivation for Asian hate is "inherent racism."
"A lot of times they don't even realize we're Filipinos. I think it's an issue that's already been there which heightened during the pandemic, it became a public issue for the racism to be justified," she said.
Dizon said that addressing Asian hate crime is an issue that needs to be addressed since it affects a large number of Fil-Ams in Daly City.
Daly City has a population of 100,007 as of 2022, according to the US Census Bureau. About 34 percent of them are Filipino-Americans, according to Dizon.
"I think because the economic instability is still very felt in San Francisco, there's a lot of tensions in the community," she said.
"The fear is already there. Just by walking to the bus, some of them are worried. If it happens to others, it might happen to us, too,” she said.