APANO aims to support Portlanders targeted by anti-Asian violence, vandalism, discrimination

The wave of aggression against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, accelerated by the pandemic, has reached many corners of our nation, including Portland.

On Dec.15, an Asian American male was physically attacked at a MAX stop in North Portland. Another incident on public transit occurred on Jan. 22, when a Caucasian male kicked an Asian American female in both shins. Many Asian and Asian American-owned businesses in Southeast Portland’s Jade District have also been targeted, recently reporting incidents of vandalism.

“We were responding to a lot of the folks who reached out to us,” said Allie Yee, manager of strategic initiatives at the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, or APANO. She said her organization has worked to support the targeted businesses, a majority of which are Asian owned, “to recover and repair their damages.”

The Jade District, located along 82nd Avenue near Southeast Division Street, is an economic development area for APANO.

Yee said that while APANO is not aware of the vandals’ motives, “we want to respond to the impact to the community, as well as the broader context that we’ve seen — a rise in violence, harassment and discrimination against Asians during the pandemic.”

APANO is a statewide grassroots organization that works to unite Asians and Pacific Islanders to achieve social justice. Founded in 1966 and with the support of Immigrant Refugee Community Organization, APANO focuses on helping API communities that are facing significant opportunity gaps, particularly in education, health and economic prosperity.

In overcoming the vandalism incidents, Yee said, APANO is leaning toward transformative justice, such as accessing funding for small businesses, repairing damages, securing community resources and having conversations with small businesses around what safety looks like in the long term. Along with working with the BIPOC communities and white allies, she believes transformative justice means valuing solidarity.

“We don’t want to call for intervention that is going to put other communities or even our community members in harm’s way,” Yee said. “Calling for more policing — we know that some people would want to see that, but I have seen where police have not responded and not kept our community safe either.”

Marchel Hirschfield, the political director at APANO, said it’s important for Asian and Pacific Islander communities to be politically engaged.

Since the organization prioritizes listening to what the API community’s needs are, Marchel Hirschfield, the political director at APANO, created programs around political advocacy and education on civic engagement to keep the community activated and help people grow into leadership roles. The pandemic, however, created an additional challenge to overcome: organizing over the internet.

“There is a great divide,” Hirschfield said. “Not everyone has access to the internet or (knows) how to navigate it. Language is a barrier, because translation could be expensive. And we don’t know who we are serving, because we don’t know who’s here. You can only serve people who are active with us.”

It’s important for API communities to be politically engaged, said Hirschfield, because decisions being made by elected officials affect everyone’s lives.

“(Elected officials) make decisions about housing, immigration rights, how budgets are distributed, education, and if we are not actively engaging our API communities, then our voices are not being heard in those decision-making spaces, then therefore those decisions don’t reflect our values, cultures and traditions.”

Wanna Lei is the Chinese community organizer at APANO. As a Chinese immigrant herself, Lei experienced the same struggles as other immigrants, such as language barriers, cultural adaptation and racial discrimination. This is why she is passionate about getting the Chinese Dual Language Immersion program to Southeast Portland, as well as providing support and connecting immigrants to resources.

Years ago, Lei and her daughter faced racial discrimination when they went to IKEA. Lei approached a male customer to ask whether he would share his table with them to eat. The man immediately replied no. A moment later, a Caucasian couple asked the man the same question, and he allowed them to share the table with him.

“Us Asians tend to be very quiet when something like this happens,” Lei said. “We just want to hide and not fight.” She added that she told the man at IKEA he was being racist.

Today, Lei is concerned about suggestions urging members of API communities to obtain guns and other weapons in order to protect themselves and their families. As a result of the attacks nationwide, “our grandparents, the seniors in our community, are really scared to go out, even to go grocery shopping,” she said.

Hirschfield said that these past months of protests represent anger toward systems that many believe have oppressed people of color and their communities for far too long.

“As Asian Americans or APIs, we fall under that model myth minority,” she said. “We are closest to white-passing at times where we have privileges that create even barriers for our Black and brown communities.”