The past year has seen a rise in racism, xenophobia and hate crimes perpetrated against Asian Americans, but also a reckoning about the need to unify and speak up against social injustices. In Eugene, the bigger challenge is finding a centralized community to connect with in the first place.
“I lack a deep community connection with Eugene. I feel that as a biracial person that I never felt super welcome or am always pushed out,” UO junior Lidija Sovulj said. “There is some Asian community that exists, so I have a community where I can find it, but in a large sense it’s not centralized.”
Misinformation and racism surrounding COVID-19 has fueled anti-Asian bias over the past year. Online hate speech aimed at Asian Americans rose last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League, with an “85% increase in anti-Asian sentiment on Twitter” following Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. The study also connected Trump and other politician’s rhetoric about the virus with increased hate speech and harassment of Asian people online.
For Asians at UO and in Eugene, trying to connect with others in the community is difficult since the population is small and spread throughout the city. During a year of increased hate and bias, the Lane East Asian Network and UO’s Asian and Pacific American Student Union have worked to address this lack of unity.
LEAN founder Nikolaj Byrdman said they haven’t had many places or opportunities to meet other Asian people. They believe this lack of interaction contributes to a diminished sense of community
Byrdman established LEAN last December. Their vision was to create the community group that they had wished existed throughout their last 13 years in Eugene. They said the lack of an Asian community comes in part from being “shamed from showing our presence because of white supremacy,” which a segment of the Asian community benefits from. This stems from the model minority myth which touts Asians as the “best” and most successful minority — which drives a wedge between them and Black and Brown communities.
According to its website, LEAN is a “place for East Asian folx, encompassing origins in both Southeast and Northeast Asia, to celebrate their heritages and support each other through the unique challenges they face due to the racism inflicted upon them by white supremacists and their ‘peaceful’ co-conspirators.” The organization also supports transgender rights, Black Lives Matter and Indigenous and Islander communities.
“I originally started LEAN as a resource for East Asian folks living in Eugene that highlights that we go through racism and violence, verbal and physical, due to the way we look,” Byrdman said. “This was occurring at the same time as so much anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism; I decided that at this time, it’s almost more important to make a stand to show everybody that a lot of us East Asian folks do want to stand up for all marginalized people.”
Christie Ko, a LEAN volunteer, said they hadn’t seen much Asian activism outside of LEAN in Eugene, but that they were sure there was some. They also said they weren’t surprised that more Asians aren’t involved in activism since people often associate it with dangerous protests.
LEAN’s first event was the “March for East Asian Women Victims of the Atlanta Massacre” in early April, co-sponsored by Black Unity. Roughly 200 people marched in Eugene in response to the Atlanta shooting, where six of eight victims were Asian women.
Byrdman said people started picking up on the lack of community and widespread anti-Asian hate after the shooting. “People finally started viewing people who look like myself as equals,” they said.
UO does have some hubs for Asian community, with eight Asian cultural organizations. APASU, the umbrella Asian student union and the largest of the Asian, Desi and Pacific Islander heritage organizations on campus, began having more social justice oriented meetings in response to anti-Asian hate.
“We don’t talk about every political thing going on, but as a team we decide to talk about subjects that were very intimately tied to ADPI culture as far as past and current,” APASU Co-Director Wendy Fan said. “For example: Black Lives Matter. We wanted to explain the impact that they had in helping Asians gain more freedom and a better place in American society.”
The group is commonly described as “a home away from home,” Fan said, since it’s a unique space where students are able to think about and discuss broader AAPI culture and issues.
“We recognize the lack of talking about politics and presence of Asian Americans in the political climate,” Fan said. “And I’ve learned a lot from discussing [these topics with] APASU people in and out of meetings.”
The lack of dialogue about these issues all goes back to an absence of Asian American presence in Eugene, Sovulj said. Though groups like LEAN and APASU exist, there needs to be more done to amplify the resources that are available and to create a feeling of unity.
