the hate crime series

Hate Crime Prevention Art Contest

grooter_liaison — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:25:00 GMT

Hate Crime Prevention Art Contest

Sponsored by Allstate Foundation and OCA-National

A collaborative project of OCA-New York, South Asian Youth Action! and Chinatown Youth Initiatives

Calling all New York City High School Students! Bring out the artist and activist in you to send a message that HATE CRIMES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED, win up to $2000 in prize money and get the opportunity to have your art work displayed!

What exactly is a Hate Crime? (Crime + Bias=Hate Crime)

“Generally speaking, a hate crime is a criminal offense committed against a person or property, which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.”

-OCA Community Action Guide

MESSAGE: Using one of the below themes, create a work of art that will challenge yourself and all those who view your art to address how hate crimes can be prevented.

THEME 1: Melting Pot vs. Mosaic – Can we all be equal but different and still exist in a mosaic? Despite our cultural differences, what do you feel ties everyone together?

THEME 2: Not Tolerance, but Appreciation – Should people just “tolerate” differences, or appreciate them?

GUIDELINES:

n Open to all high school students in New York City

n All participants MUST be present at art opening on August 2, 2007, 5pm at the Asian American Arts Centre, 26 Bowery in Manhattan, during which time winners will be announced

n All Submissions must be RECEIVED BY July 25, 2007 at the following location:

Frances Yen

Asian American for Equality Community Center

111 Norfolk Street, Ground Floor

New York, NY 10002

Attn: Hate Crimes Prevention Art Contest

n All artwork must not be larger than 25 X 36 inches, and can include the following mediums:

o Sketches

o Drawings

o Paintings

o Computer Graphics

o Collages

o Poetry

o Photography

o Combination of Mediums

n All art work must be on a flat surface, no more than 2 inches thick

n All art work will be displayed on walls, so cannot be too heavy or delicate

n No sharp objects permitted (razors, glass, knives, nails, etc)

n The sponsoring organizations are not responsible for any damage to art work

n All art work is permanently the property of OCA-New York

n All art work must be submitted with a completed submission form (on back)

Questions? Concerns? Please contact lizouyang@aol.com

Hate Crime Prevention Art Contest

Sponsored by Allstate Foundation and OCA-National

A collaborative project of OCA-New York, South Asian Youth Action! And Chinatown Youth Initiative

ART SUBMISSION FORM

This form MUST BE SUBMITTED with the art work. All art work not submitted with this form will be deemed ineligible.

NAME: _______________________________________________________________

AGE: ___________________ YEAR IN SCHOOL: _______________

HIGH SCHOOL: __________________________________________________________

ADDRESS: __________________________________________________________

EMAIL: __________________________________________________________

PHONE: __________________________________________________________

TITLE OF ART WORK: ____________________________________________________

MEDIUM OF ART WORK:

Sketch

Drawing

Painting

Computer Graphic

Collage

Poetry

Photography

Multiple Mediums

I, ____________________________________ (print name) hereby submit the attached art work. I understand that this piece of artwork is now property of OCA-New York and will not be returned to me.

________________________________ _________________________

Signature Date

8/1/07: Revisiting Sa-I-Gu

member services — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:30:00 GMT

Sa-I-Gu (April 29th in Korean) symbolizes the social meltdown and havoc when Los Angeles erupted after four cops were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King in 1992. In New York City, Korean Americans also faced organized boycotts and other actions. Sa-I-Gu was part of an era of heightened race tensions and distrust of our government when underserved communities suffering from institutional inequity vented their anger towards each other.

Our community forum will revisit Sa-I-Gu fifteen years later and discuss the current status of government accountability, inter-community development, and civic engagement.

Panelists include:

> Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, Film Producer

> Joel Magalian, Executive Director of Asociacion Tepeyac

> Grace Lyu-Volckhausen, Human Rights Commissioner

> J. Edward Lee, COO of ImaginAsian Entertainment

> Angela Perry, National Urban Fellows, Inc.

> Moderated by John Choe, Chief of Staff to NYC Councilman John Liu

WHEN: August 1, 2007, 6 PM Screenings of Sa-I-Gu and Wet Sand, 7:30 PM Panel Discussion

WHERE: The ImaginAsian Theater

239 East 59th Street, New York, NY (between 2nd and 3rd Ave)

WHAT: Screening of Sa-I-Gu, a documentary by Christine Choy, Elaine Kim and Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, followed by a panel discussion.

Please contact Ron Kim for info and RSVP: 917-363-4853, ron@grooted.org

Click here to join the discussion on the roots of Sa-I-Gu

---

ORGANIZERS: Korean American League for Civic Action and grooted.org

CO-SPONSORS: APA's for Progress and ImaginAsian Theater

PARTNERS: Korean American Youth Foundation, Museum of Chinese Americans, Korean American Voters' Council, Korean American Empowerment Council, Korean Americans for Political Advancement

Listing of all the panels nationwide on hate crimes & hatred

grooter_liaison — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:04:00 GMT

Asian Pacific Americans for Progress presents...
National Townhall on Hate Crimes
June 19th-July 14th
Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston and more.

In June 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin was killed in Detroit by two unemployed white autoworkers. This hate crime, motivated by anti-Japanese sentiments, served as a rallying cry for the Asian American community and is often considered the beginning of a pan-Asian American movement. Twenty five years later, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and local partners around the country look back in time and assess where we are now. Each event will include a special screening of the Academy-Award nominated documentary, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" and panels with local community leaders.

Receptions in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles sponsored by Imaginasian TV. Official media sponsor: Asianweek

NEW YORK
June 19, 6:30 PM
Co-sponsored by the Museum of Chinese in the Americas
MOCA (70 Mulberry Street, 2nd Floor)
John Liu (New York City Councilman), Liz Ouyang (Executive Vice President, OCA), Darwin Davis (President and CEO, New York Urban League)

GRAND RAPIDS, MI
June 19, 6:00 PM
Co-sponsored by the Asian Victimes Relief Fund
St. Mary Magdalen Family Center, 1213 52nd St., Kenwood
Dan Levy (Chief Legal Officer, Michigan Dept. of Civil Rights) Pravina Ramanathan (Asian American Liaison, Michigan Dept. of Civil Rights), Ingrid Scott-Weekly (Director, City of Grand Rapids Equal Opportunity Dept.)

CHICAGO
June 20, 6:30 PM
Co-sponsored by the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (JAHHM), Japanese American Citizens League, Organization of Chinese Americans
JAHHM, 800 South Halsted, Chicago
Bill Yoshino (Midwest Director, JACL), Diana Lin (VP, Asian American Institute), Myron Quon (Legal Director, Asian American Institute)

DETROIT
June 23, 9:00 AM
Sponsored by the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Allstate Foundation
Co-sponsored by the American Citizens for Justice, Governor's Advisory Council on Asian Pacific American Affairs and APAP
Chinese Community Center, 32585 Concord Drive, Madison Heights, MI 48071
This full-day event is being organized by the Detroit Chapter of OCA as part of their Initiative on Hate Crimes. APAP is proud to be a co-sponsor. In addition to the screening of "Who Killed Vincent Chin?", there will also be a series of panels and a visit to the gravesite at Forest Lawn Cemetary. Panelists include Frank H. Wu (Dean, Wayne State Law School), Roland Hwang (President, ACJ), Stephanie Lily Chang (ACJ) and many more.

WASHINGTON, DC
June 23, 10:30 AM
Martin Luther King Jr. Library, 901 G. Street (Chinatown)
Co-sponsored by South Asian American Leaders for Tomorrow (SAALT), Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), Sikh American Legal Education and Defense Fund (SALDEF), University of Maryland's Asian American Studies Program, and the DC APA Film Festival.
Moderated by Eric Byler (director, Americanese and Charlotte Sometimes). Keynote by Larry Shinagawa (Professor, Univ. of Maryland)

BOSTON (QUINCY)
June 23, 2:00 PM
665 Hancock St., Quincy, MA
Co-sponsored by Asian American Resource Workshop, American Chinese Federation, Chinese Progressive Association

LOS ANGELES
June 24, 2:00 PM
Co-sponsored by National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (NCPD), Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, South Asian Network, Muslim Public Affairs Council
NCPD, 111 Center St.
Hamid Khan (Executive Director, South Asian Network), Stewart Kwoh (Executive Director, APALC), Robin Toma (Executive Director, LA County Human Relations Commission), Renee Tajima (Director, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?")

SAN FRANCISCO
June 27, 6:30 PM
Co-sponsored by Chinese Historical Society
Chinese For Affirmative Action, 17 Walter U Lum Place (across from Portsmouth Sqare; on Clay between Grant Ave and Kearny St.)
Helen Zia (author and activist), Honorable Yvonne Lee (Member of the SF Police Commission and former Commissioner of the President's Commission on Civil Rights), Malcolm Yeung (Staff Attorney, Asian Law Caucus), Kavneet Singh (Managing Director, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund

PORTLAND, OR
July 7, Time TBD
Location TBD
Co-sponsored by Thymos

RALEIGH/DURHAM
July 14, 2:00 PM
Co-sponsored by the National Association of Asian American Professionals-North Carolina and North Carolina Asian Pacific American Bar Association
Korman Communities - Theater, 300 Seaforth Drive, Durham, NC 27713

Increase of hate crimes against Asian American students

grooter1 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:25:00 GMT

APAs are the fastest growing minority group in the states and as a result of certain changes and overall xenophobic to racist sentiments, Asian American students are experiencing more hatred. Below is a good article on this dilemma:

HEADLINE: Asian-American students suffer beatingsacross country: Teens seen as brainy, unlikely to fight back

BYLINE: Erin Texeira, The Chicago Sun-Times

DATELINE: NEW YORK

BODY:

NEW YORK -- Eighteen-year-old Chen Tsu was waiting on a Brooklyn subway platform after school when four high school classmates approached him and demanded cash. He showed them his empty pockets, but they attacked him anyway, taking turns pummeling his face.

He was scared and injured -- bruised and swollen for several days -- but hardly surprised.

At his school, Lafayette High in Brooklyn, Chinese immigrant students like him are harassed and bullied so routinely that school officials agreed to a Department of Justice consent decree to curb alleged ''severe and pervasive harassment directed at Asian-American students by their classmates.''

Since then, the Justice Department credits Lafayette officials with addressing the problem -- but the case is far from isolated.

Nationwide, Asian students say they're often beaten, threatened and called ethnic slurs by other young people, and school safety data suggest that the problem may be worsening.

Youth advocates say these Asian teens, stereotyped as high-achieving students who rarely fight back, have for years borne the brunt of ethnic tension as Asian communities expand and neighborhoods become more racially diverse.

TEACHER HIDES CHINESE BOY

''We suspect that in areas that have rapidly growing populations of Asian-Americans, there often times is a sort of culture clashing,'' said Aimee Baldillo of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. Youth harassment is ''something we see everywhere in different pockets of the U.S. where there's a large influx.''

In the last five years, Census data show, Asians -- mostly Chinese -- have grown from 5 percent to nearly 10 percent of Brooklyn residents. In the Bensonhurst neighborhood, historically home to Italian and Jewish families, more than 20 percent of residents now are Asian. Those changes have escalated ethnic tension on campuses such as Lafayette High, according to Khin Mai Aung, staff attorney at the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is advocating for Lafayette students.

''The schools are the one place where everyone is forced to come together,'' Aung said.

Brooklyn's changes mirror Asian growth nationally. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders grew from 3.7 million to nearly 12 million. After Latinos, Asians are the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group.

Stories of Asian youth being bullied and worse are common. In recent years:

-A Chinese middle schooler in San Francisco was mercilessly taunted until his teacher hid him in her classroom at lunchtime.

-Three Korean-American students were beaten so badly near their Queens high school that they skipped school for weeks and begged to be transferred.

-A 16-year-old from Vietnam was killed last year in a massive brawl in Boston.

Some lawmakers have responded. The New York City Council, after hearing hours of testimony from Asian youth, last year passed a bill to track bullying and train educators on prevention. Also last year, California Assemblywoman Judy Chu won passage of a new law to allow hate crimes victims more time -- up to three years -- to file civil suits; the bill was inspired by a 2003 San Francisco incident in which five Asian teens were attacked by a mob of youths.

SCHOOL CLAIMS EXAGGERATION

In August, the Oakland-based Asian Pacific Islander Youth Violence Prevention Center organized a first-ever conference on the subject in Sacramento. Isami Arifuku, assistant director of the center, said she expected about 200 participants but nearly double that number attended.

Experts offer several broad explanations for the bullying problem.

In the broadest strokes, Baldillo said, Asian youth are sometimes small in stature and often adhere to cultural mores urging them to avoid confrontation and focus on academics. Many don't report bullying because they fear repercussions or don't want to embarrass their families, she added.

Language barriers also exacerbate the situation. ''I have to hear, '[Expletive] Chinese!' at least three times a day, and they always say it to people who look weaker and don't speak English,'' said Rita Zeng, a senior at Lafayette High.

School officials say some reports were exaggerated. But ''the problems there went back many, many years,'' said Michael Best, general counsel for New York City schools. Since signing the consent decree in June, he said, ''the situation at the school in our view is very, very different.''

June 2007 - Attack against 15 year old Sikh

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:33:00 GMT

Read below for an article about a recent attack against a Sikh student and for more information and/or if you want to support the student, please contact the directors of the Sikh Coalition: Neha Kaur, Advocacy Director (212) 729-6141 or Amardeep Singh, Executive Director (917) 628-0091

Sikhs: Schools turn blind eye to bias

By Michael Y. Park

Special to amNewYork

June 5, 2007

An alleged bias attack against a Sikh student at a Queens high school has civil-rights groups and city councilmen pointing fingers directly at Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

On May 25, 17-year-old Umair Ahmed dragged 15-year-old Vacher Harpal, a practicing Sikh, into a bathroom at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, where Ahmed used scissors to cut Harpal's hair to the neckline while a younger boy stood watch at the door, according to police.

A key religious tenet of Sikhism is that males keep their hair unshorn. Ahmed and the other boy are Muslim.

Queens prosecutors used hate-crime statutes to charge Ahmed with unlawful imprisonment, aggravated harassment and menacing, as well as harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. Ahmed could face up to seven years in prison. No one else was charged.

But politicians and activists said prosecution wasn't enough and said the Department of Education needs a systematic overhaul of the way it handles bias.

"The Department of Education is as guilty as these boys in that bathroom for what happened," Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) said at a news conference Monday at the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan.

Several civil-rights groups, representing Sikhs, South Asians and Muslims among others, said bias attacks against minorities have only gotten worse since 9/11.

"Almost half -- half! -- of our Sikh children face harassment," Sikh Coalition executive director Amardeep Singh said. "That is unacceptable."

Singh, Liu and councilmen David Weprin (D-Queens Village), Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan) and Hiram Montserrat (D-Corona) blamed Klein for failing to follow through on the Dignity for All Students Act, which the council passed in 2004 and calls for cultural-sensitivity training for school staff and for data to be collected on bias-based harassment.

In an e-mailed statement, a spokeswoman for Klein said that the criticism was unfounded, and that the department takes discrimination and harassment very seriously.

"School leaders have worked to create a safe and nurturing environment for all students," Dina Paul Parks wrote. "They have supported the student and his family and met with representatives from the Sikh Coalition the day after the incident. Their leadership has brought the school community together and will ensure that it continues to move forward in a spirit of unity."

According to a report released Monday by the Sikh Coalition, 58.4 percent of Sikh students in New York City public schools have been physically harassed because of their religion, and 30.2 percent of complaints to school staff are ignored.

According to Singh, Harpal had complained of harassment by other students five times before the May 25 incident but administrators did nothing or little about it.

Marie Stefanie Martinez - anti-Asian hate crime

Jun Zuniga — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:27:00 GMT

http://www.petitiononline.com/mtahate1/petition.html

http://pacificcitizen.org/content/2007/national/apr6-stom-mta.htm

http://www.falloutcentral.com/news/2007/04/17/podcast-episode-interview-with-john-leo-directory-of-community-relations-for-the-chinatown-partnership-new-york-city/

http://antiessentialistspeaksup.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/update-on-marie-stefanie-martinez/

http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/2007/04/marie-stefanie-martinez.html

http://voxexmachina.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/another-update-on-marie-stefanie-martinez/

http://www.aamovement.net/hatecrime/2007-9/martinez.html

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/37901/Teenage-Pinay-na-binugbog-sa-NY-umaani-ng-suporta

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03212007/news/regionalnews/girl__14__nabbed_in_student_bus_beating_regionalnews_erika_martinez_and_leela_de_kretser.htm

http://www.falloutcentral.com/news/2007/03/20/girl-beaten-on-nyc-bus-for-looking-chinese/

http://www.falloutcentral.com/news/2007/04/12/no-word-from-the-mta-about-the-case-of-marie-stefanie-martinez-but/

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03182007/news/regionalnews/girls_bloody_beating_regionalnews_dan_mangan________and_leela_de_kretser.htm

http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=646

http://www.carrollgardenscourier.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18116913&BRD=2384&PAG=461&dept_id=560114&rfi=6

http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=760f4b57120f76d796d6a0763788cf94

article on hate crimes against pinays

pizza — Tue, 15 May 2007 05:29:00 GMT

Bus attack vs. Pinay HS girl sparks anti-hate crime drive The Filipino Express

Apr 2, 2007 / Apr 8, 2007

HEADLINE: Bus attack vs. Pinay HS girl sparks anti-hate crime drive

ABSTRACT

The petition accused the bus driver of "neglecting his moral and ethical duty to ensure the safety of MTA riders and punctuated his negligent conduct by allegedly advising Ms. [Martinez], who was still wearing her Catholic school uniform, to 'go talk to a priest' after the assault."

"If the bus operator is found to have permitted the assault to have taken place and informed Ms. Martinez to 'go talk to a priest', MTA should subject the bus operator to termination from his position," the letter said.

"When we got on they were al ready whispering and making noises and everything," Martinez said. "They were like 'I'm not letting you past' and everything. They were laughing."

FULL TEXT

NEW YORK CITY - Spurred by the recent assault against a Filipina high school student in Queens, a petition-signing campaign was launched demanding an investigation into the incident and to demand punishment for authorities who failed to stop the attack.

The letter of petition is addressed to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NY Police Department Hate Crimes Task Force Commanding Officer Inspector Michael Osgood and MTA Bus President Tom Savage.

The New York Post reported on March 16 that 17 year old Filipina high school student, Marie Stefanie Marti nez was assaulted in New York by a group of teenagers on a MTA B82 bus due to their perception that she looked "Chinese" even though she is of Filipino descent.

Ms. Martinez was punched, kicked, and subjected to slurs in what can be categorized as a hate crime based on her attackers animosity towards her perceived ethnicity.

Reportedly, the MTA bus operator who witnessed the assault did nothing to intervene during the course of the assault on Ms. Martinez.

The petition accused the bus driver of "neglecting his moral and ethical duty to ensure the safety of MTA riders and punctuated his negligent conduct by allegedly advising Ms. Martinez, who was still wearing her Catholic school uniform, to 'go talk to a priest' after the assault."

The petition is asking the MTA and NYPD to "conduct a vigorous full and complete investigation into the incident ensuring that any violations found of any applicable hate crimes statutes are fully applied."

It also called for the bus operator to "be subjected to discipline commensurate to the action of permitting riders to commit a hate crime on a MTA rider."

"If the bus operator is found to have permitted the assault to have taken place and informed Ms. Martinez to 'go talk to a priest', MTA should subject the bus operator to termination from his position," the letter said.

The petition letter could be accessed via the internet athttp://www.petitiononline. com/mtahate1/petition.html.

As of Thursday afternoon, March 29, close of 2,200 persons have signed the petition.

Martinez, 17 told the New York Post that she was attacked by a group of 10 black teenagers shortly after stepping on to the B82 bus at 3:30 p.m. Friday.

"I'm just so glad the kids didn't have a weapon. If they did, I could have died if they stabbed me with a pen or something," said Martinez, from the Philippines.

The brazen beating began as the bus pulled away from Ocean Avenue and Kings Highway, where Martinez boarded with her pal, Sherell.

"When we got on they were al ready whispering and making noises and everything," Martinez said. "They were like 'I'm not letting you past' and everything. They were laughing."

The scared schoolgirl said she was laughed at when she tried to defend herself, with the bullies mocking her accent.

"They were pulling my hair, pulling my hair, opening my book bag!" she said. "I said, 'Leave me alone. I'm not doing anything to you.'

"That's when they started to crowd around me. The boy punched me twice in my face and my mouth."

Martinez said she was ultimately saved by a man in his 30s, who pulled her from the group.

The honors student then told the driver what happened, and he shockingly said to go to talk to a priest.

She instead opted to file a report at the 63rd Precinct.

LOAD-DATE: April 29, 2007