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Jan 20, 2022 1 min, 25 secs

The death of Michelle Go, who was fatally shoved in front of a New York subway car on Saturday, has left the Asian American community feeling a sense of tragic loss, groups say. .

Though the incident is not being investigated as a hate crime, the community is reeling, mourning and on edge against a backdrop of increased hate crimes and attacks, Asian American advocacy organizations say.

“Whether it was a hate crime or not, the reality is, Asian Americans, especially Asian American women, every time we see an incident like this, our anxiety goes up,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, told NBC Asian America.

Experts previously told NBC Asian America that the term hate crime should be used only when a suspect is charged, as it has dangerous implications — particularly for communities of color — when applied to cases that do not involve racial animus. .

Groups are heeding that warning, and at the same time acknowledging that some Asian Americans are saying that their daily fears were realized in the attack and that they saw themselves in Go — particularly women. .

She had just celebrated her 40th birthday, and reminded some women of any one of “our sisters,” said Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of NYC-based nonprofit Asian American Federation. 

Yoo said that the Asian community had already been on high alert since the start of the pandemic, when many had been blamed or scapegoated for the virus

Choimorrow said Asian women might be uniquely vulnerable to harassment because of the stereotype that they are timid and docile, therefore making them “an easy target.” So the incident should not be discussed as an outlier, Choimorrow said, but as a systemic one. 

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