When we don’t know where to turn, sometimes we turn on each other.
That’s the message of a new report by a minority advocacy group. Attacks on minorities in the United States, it claims, particularly against Asian, Pakistani and Indian groups, increased sharply after Sept. 11. The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, made up of legal groups in California and New York, issued the report on March 11.
“Immigrants from South Asia appear to have been the subject of attacks and other racially-motivated incidents because they were perceived, often incorrectly, to be Arab or Muslim,” the report said. Almost 80 percent of the hate crimes mentioned in the report occurred in September.
“We must be vigilant to ensure that immigrants are not targeted by virtue of color, religion or background, because they are equal stakeholders in our country,” said Stewart Kwoh, an executive director with the consortium.
The report states that while direct attacks on immigrants have declined, there is a second wave of backlash “that will have lasting consequences for immigrants.”
Immigrants in Memphis are no exception.
“Immediately after Sept. 11, people used to drive by my restaurant and tell me they will kill me,” said Aimer Shtaya, owner of the Morocco Cafe near The University of Memphis. “They used to paint things on the wall, and drive by and scream at the customers. It’s not as bad now as it was then, but some of those things are still going on.”
“In the months following the tragedy of Sept. 11,” the NAPALC report states, “the paradigm of immigration shifted from being a welcome and integral feature of American life to the potential source of a national security threat.”
Close to 250 incidents of hate crimes against immigrants are mentioned in the report. They occurred in the last three months of last year, and usually involved threatening phone calls, racial slurs and homicide.
“I love my country very much,” Shtaya said. “I don’t understand, because I had nothing to do with the people who committed these horrible crimes.”
Even more alarming, the report points out that while President Bush initially came down hard on retaliating against immigrants in the United States, many of his policies have delivered the opposite message. According to the report, immediately after Sept. 11, the Department of Justice arrested thousands of immigrants based solely on suspicion.
“In New York,” the report states, “South Asian, Arab and Muslim Americans were stopped for questioning and the FBI and INS conducted house raids in communities largely populated by these minorities.”
The report calls for renewed support of the Local Law Enforcement Act of 2001, a measure that expands current hate crime legislation.
“The challenge for Americans,” said Karen Karasaki, another executive director with the consortium, “is determining who is an American. It is vital that we view immigrants to be as deserving of civil rights and constitutional protections as any other citizen.”
