Malacanang appealed for a stop to the surge in anti-Asian violence in the United States, stressing it is the immigrants, including Filipinos, who make the foreign country great.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was reacting to the Stop Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Hate report showing that Filipinos ranked third among ethnicities which received hate incidents from March to June this year at 9.1 % behind Chinese (43.5%) and Koreans (16.8%).
“Nakakalungkot po iyan at nakakabahala. Unang-una, halos lahat tayo ay mayroong kamag-anak sa Amerika at ayaw nating maging biktima ang ating mga kababayan (That is worrisome and alarming. First of all, I think almost all of us have relatives in the US, and we don’t want them to be victims of these hate incidents),” Roque said.
“Pero siguro mas nakakabahala iyan kasi iyong mga kababayan natin, mga kamag-anak natin nagpunta sa Amerika kasi alam natin what drives America is the hopes and aspirations ng mga immigrants. So parang kapag pag-iinitan mo iyong mga immigrants ay pinag-iinitan mo iyong, kumbaga, kaluluwa ng Amerika mismo as the land of immigrants. So sana po ay matigil na ito (What is more concerning is that our people went to the US because it is the hopes and aspirations of immigrants that drives the US. If they get attacked with hate incidents, you go after the soul of the US because it is the land of immigrants),” he added.
Based on the same Stop AAPI Hate report, the discrimination that AAPIs experienced include: name calling/verbal harassment, avoidance/shunning, physical assault, coughed at/spar upon, online harassment, workplace discrimination, barred from establishment, vandalism/graffiti and barred from transportation.
The same report revealed that these hate incidents happened in sidewalk/public street, business, private residence, online, public transit, public park, school, university and place of worship.—LDF, GMA News
0 Comments