As COVID-19 forced our lives into quarantine, anti-asian hate crimes were topics that exploded throughout social media in the United States. It had strongly impacted the mental health and lives of people that felt destructed by the problem. Communities were having trouble adapting to their native environment due to the negative outcomes.

Today, there are many Asian cultured individuals who have experienced certain violence and mental breakdown through hate crimes targeted towards them. This rate will continue increasing in the United States if there continues to be a missing solution. 

In the past two years, many Asian Americans have been spit on or coughed on, and many have been told to “go back to your country.” Victims have no solution to the problem because their voices are not being heard enough to decrease the chances of the issue happening again. Many victims experience physical, mental, or emotional pain.

Currently, many jewelry sellers, restaurant owners,  and many other business owners are having a hard time trying to maintain their businesses in the United States since many of those that commit hate crimes use weapons and language to target people that own property, valuables, and businesses. As many people think that COVID is like a pause in reality, crime offenders are taking advantage of the time to be selfish and steal valuables that were hardly bought by people anymore.

From 2020 to 2021, Oakland’s Chinatown was described as a “ghost town” as COVID had increased the thefts and brutal attacks against Asian Americans. There were many business owners that would close their shop at an earlier hour to prevent theft from happening at night where the faces of criminals were harder to recognize.

As time passes by, the rates of racial discrimination grew in 2021 and it has grown much higher than the data from 2020. 

“According to a national survey by AAPI Data and Momentive, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased since the start of the pandemic: 1 in 6 Asian American adults reported experiencing a hate crime in 2021,” Jennifer Lee said from the Brookings Institution. 

As crime committers are causing the conflict, there are many individuals and groups that created and became the solution for Asian discrimination and crime rates. The power of unity helped protect much more of the people in our societies.

Citizen effort is a solution to today’s problems with thefts and burglary. There have been many officers and security that have been trying to patrol streets to ensure the safety of the citizens. As people strived to put an effort into changing the hate that had been going around in society, it took people’s time and willingness to become the solution of the problem. 

As reality may seem extremely brutal to adults, there are also many students that identify the hate that the Asian community is dealing with. The future is dependent on the current student and teen populations where everyone would need to work together to remove negativity from society.

We must spread awareness online, sign petitions, protest, and more. The issue is appalling and needs to be stopped. Under no circumstances should a human being treat another human this way, it’s inhumane. We as a community must come together and end this discrimination now.