“What we’re talking about today is not simply acts of interpersonal racism, which are based on prejudgment bias and result in discrimination on an individual basis, but also institutional racism that has policies and practices that benefit white Americans to the detriment of people of color, whether they’re intentional or inadvertent. That, combined, creates what we have in America, which is structural racism—a history and current reality of that institutional racism,” Kulkarni said.

Kulkarni is executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, a coalition of community-based organizations that advocates for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in Los Angeles County and beyond. She is also a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit that tracks and responds to hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the country. In 2014, she received the White House’s Champions of Change award for her efforts in improving health care access for the AAPI community. Last year, she testified before Congress on the issue of anti-Asian hate. 

Kulkarni, who was born in India and raised in the U.S., recalled an incident that inspired her career. She said that when her mother interviewed for a position at an American hospital, a panel of white male physicians asked her, “Why do you foreigners come to the United States and take all of our jobs?” 

“She and my father, who is also a doctor, chose to bring a class action lawsuit with the help of an attorney … to fight not only the discrimination she experienced, but practices and policies in the state of Alabama that prohibited non-European immigrant doctors from practicing and being part of a residency program,” Kulkarni said. “They happened to get a successful settlement in that case. And it was because of that … I saw that the law could be used as a tool for redress.”

A Crime with a Community-Based Solution

Kulkarni is now using the law to help the AAPI community. In response to the rise of anti-Asian hate at the beginning of the pandemic, Kulkarni co-founded Stop AAPI Hate. Since the nonprofit was founded in March 2020, it has received more than 10,000 reports of discrimination across the country, said Kulkarni. Many incidents involved women who were verbally harassed in public parks and streets. However, most of them are not technically categorized as a crime, said Kulkarni.  

“A majority of the incidents reported to us, upwards of 90%, actually do not involve a crime or do not rise to the level of a crime. That’s particularly true with physical assault,” Kulkarni said, including throwing bottles at someone or shoving a person in a manner that doesn’t result in significant physical harm. 

But although the incidents don’t warrant legal punishment, they negatively impact their victims. Kulkarni said that in a Stop AAPI Hate survey conducted with the Asian American Psychological Association, they found a 155% increase in depression among Asian Americans.

“In that same survey I mentioned, 72% said that they were more concerned about COVID-19 related hate as opposed to the virus itself and its impact,” Kulkarni said. 

She encouraged the audience to report anti-Asian hate crimes they have witnessed or experienced, share resources and safety tips, and advocate for policy changes. She also noted that Stop AAPI Hate co-sponsored two bills that were recently introduced to the California legislature to address street harassment and public safety issues. 

‘The Best Place to Begin to Become an Advocate’ 

In a Q&A, a student pointed out that in mainstream media, the ethnicity of perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes is often highlighted, leading to resentment against the Black and Latinx communities. But there are recent studies that reveal the majority of perpetrators are not people of color, said Kulkarni. She added that reports from Stop AAPI Hate support these findings, too.  

“We know from the descriptions that have been offered by individuals on the [Stop AAPI Hate] reporting form that African Americans are not the leading perpetrators. This is really important information, and I think the studies that have been done also by the two professors show that and can really, I think, as we begin to spread that information, help to combat some of the anti-Blackness,” Kulkarni said.  

When asked about how to handle discriminatory comments from professors, which has been seen in other law schools across the country, Kulkarni advised students to reach out to University student organizations, like Fordham’s Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, as well as the law school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion officers. 

“You know your campus. You know your community. This is the best place to begin to become an advocate—on issues that impact you directly,” Kulkarni said. 

Kulkarni’s lecture was part of the Feerick Center Speaker Series, which invites scholars to speak about timely social justice issues. The event was co-sponsored by more than 20 organizations.

Here, in a poorly lit first-floor food court on Mott Street, members and guests of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Alumni at Fordham Affinity Chapter turn their heads, suddenly, when the ruckus rambles through the door. Chinatown’s lions have arrived to let the Fordham Rams know about the Year of the Tiger.

Across two large tables, this sprawling, multigenerational group is united by some shared heritage and a lot of shared history: Their families came from China, Korea, and Burma, and now they’ve brought their own spouses and children to dine over char siu bao, congee, rice noodles with dried shrimp, sesame balls with red bean paste, fry bread, and kimchi. Tea tops the table all over: some steaming, some iced with boba bubbles.

Everyone here has some connection to Fordham University. Sure, the school was founded in 1841 primarily for Irish, Catholic immigrants by an Irish immigrant who became the first archbishop of New York, but today it’s everybody. “Is it not delightful,” Confucius asked more than two millennia ago, “to have friends coming from distant quarters?” Some are alumni, some are current students; one man, a Navy lifer, is here just because his two kids went to Fordham and he’s proud about it.

The group formed just a year ago, but that’s not surprising: The pandemic period has been particularly turbulent for Asian Americans, with sporadic incidents of anti-Asian aggression growing more and more frequent. The FBI estimates a 73% increase in such events across the country in 2020, with many of them occurring in New York City. This has led to waves of protest and acts of solidarity amid concerns about how anti-Asian bias is affecting young people in particular.

“I got involved last year,” says Mark Son, a 2010 Fordham Law graduate and one of three co-leaders of the group, which was founded by the Hon. Christopher P. Lee, FCRH ’71, LAW ’79. “I was worried about the anti-Asian-American hate crime. I think it was very important to do this sort of work, trying to keep a voice present in the conversation.”

Son, a principal law clerk with the New York State Supreme Court in the Bronx, views the community and its foundation as a building block to social justice, growth, and learning. “Students had expressed concern,” he adds, “and we wanted alumni to create a network. Even within the Asian American community, we have different subsets: Chinese, Koreans—Kyaw,” he points to Fordham senior Kyaw Hein, eating pork dumplings and listening in on the conversation—“is from Burma. We have a guy from Tonga. So it’s a learning experience for us, as well.”

Edwin Wong, another co-leader of the group, notes how much things have changed from the time he earned an M.B.A. at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business. “In 2004, it was getting there,” he says of the University’s growing Asian American population, “and now we’ve got lots of Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and South Asians—a distribution list of more than a thousand people. Before, people took it for granted, but now people are getting engaged with the community.”

While at Fordham, Wong says he started what he calls the Fordham Asian Business Network for students and alumni eager to draw on the collective strength of a growing community in a shrinking world. “You need a network, so I started that,” he says, noting that he and many of the alumni in the group would love to see Fordham launch an Asian American studies program that would grow to become as prominent as the University’s departments of African and African American and Latin American and Latino studies, which have their roots in the late 1960s. (This work is already underway: With support from two University grants—an Arts & Sciences Deans’ Challenge Grant and a Teaching Race Across the Curriculum Grant from the chief diversity officer—a group of 10 Fordham professors is developing a curriculum for a minor in Asian American studies.) Son says that he looks forward to seeing “a community that’s more welcoming,” with more Asian Americans teaching as professors and in leadership positions.

With their small children bedecked in maroon college apparel, some toddling if they’re able to walk at all, the alumni say they plan to return to the neighborhood in just a week, when the largest new year celebrations will kick off. “My hope is that in the future,” says Wong, “we could have a Fordham group march in the larger Manhattan Lunar New Year parade, the same way that Fordham participates in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”

After lunch, they all move through streets chockablock with onlookers and revelers wearing masks, playing games, throwing small fireworks against the sidewalk, and shooting off confetti poppers. The group rambles through the narrow lanes, lingering on Bayard Street, home to many iconic businesses such as the Mei Lai Wah Bakery and the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, President Justin Yu welcomes the group, offering them—you guessed it—more food. They talk about both Fordham and their community’s future in a changing world for Asian Americans while nibbling on sweet sponge cake.

It’s not hard to see, as parents unwrap snacks for their littlest, who they have in mind. After all, it’s a new year.

Learn more about the Asian American and Pacific Islander Alumni at Fordham Affinity Chapter on the group’s web page and its Facebook and Instagram accounts.

“I think that part was the most painful for her. When I think about it, it’s really painful for me to think that something had happened to somebody I love, and nobody would stand up,” said Park-Taylor, an associate professor of counseling psychology and a director of training in the Graduate School of Education.

Park-Taylor shared this story as a part of a virtual community convening on anti-Asian violence and racism on March 24, which brought together more than 200 members of the Fordham community. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian bias, attacks, and harassment have been on the rise. Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit, documented almost 3,800 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from March 2020 to February 2021. Most recently, six Asian American women were murdered in Atlanta.

Members of the Fordham community, including Park-Taylor; Mary Balingit, associate director for diversity initiatives in the Office of Admissions; Arthur Liu, a Fordham College at Rose Hill sophomore and president of Fordham’s Asian Cultural Exchange; and Stephen Hong Sohn, Ph.D., professor and Thomas F.X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature, along with moderator Rafael Zapata, chief diversity officer and special assistant to the president for diversity, reflected on the impact of anti-Asian violence. They discussed ways to build community and heal, and talked about possibilities for interracial solidarity.

“I think what’s a little bit different about this moment is just the level of fear that I’ve heard communicated,” Sohn said. “It’s been higher than I’ve ever anecdotally seen before, and the circumstances coming out of COVID make the experience slightly unique as well.. But I think it’s important for us to realize this is part of a longer historical genealogy of anti-Asian sentiments that has reemerged in light of these circumstances.”

Liu, who is originally from Hong Kong, said that he “thinks fondly of the United States,” but that he had to convince his friends back home that many Americans weren’t like the political leaders who were making anti-Asian remarks.

“The political rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 and what Donald Trump has said—what he said was incredibly hurtful,” Liu said.

He also said he had friends ask him if he was considering taking martial arts classes to learn how to defend himself in case he was attacked.

“You shouldn’t have to feel the need to know how to defend yourself in a civil society,” he said. “And so I was taken aback by that initially, but honestly, I’m kind of buying into the idea, because I just feel a heightened sense of awareness and being scared.”

That sense of awareness is something that Park-Taylor said she has personally grappled with.

“When I think about the experiences of racism I’ve gone through throughout my life, I can think of it as this duality—sometimes I feel really invisible. I feel like I’m not seen at all, I’m not heard and silenced,” she said. “But then there are times when I feel hyper visible. There were (times when) I’m the only Asian person in a classroom. Or instances where I’m particularly targeted because I’m an Asian woman and [because of]the stereotypes about Asian women.”

Balingit said those negative stereotypes, which have been perpetuated throughout history, were on display when the Asian women were killed in Atlanta.

“That shared experience of being an Asian woman—the negative stereotypes that say that we’re docile, and that we’re quiet, we’re apolitical, and that we are weak—I think that played into that, and to what happened last week in Atlanta,” she said.

Park-Taylor said that she hoped people now have a better understanding of microaggressions and intersectionality.

“There’s a unique positionality that an Asian woman occupies in this place and space,” she said.

Balingit said that solidarity between minority communities is essential to combating these acts and other types of racism and white supremacy.

“I think what’s important is look at the history—we have to look at the history of our solidarity first, and to Rafael (Zapata’s) point is how everything is rooted mainly in white supremacy and how this perpetuates the pitting of minorities against each other,” she said. “Let’s not let this divide us even more, especially at a time like now where we’re also very isolated already.”

Zapata also stressed the importance of bystander intervention, and noted there are trainings on the topic, such as the one offered through Hollaback!, a global movement to end harassment.

“We had been working on a panel on this issue just as the murders in Atlanta took place, which was especially devastating, and made clear for all to see what far too many AAPI people in the U.S. had been experiencing at higher rates since the beginning of the pandemic,” Zapata said. “It also made participating in the panel more of a challenge, because of the emotional toll it could take on participants. I’m so grateful to the panelists for all they shared.”

For students, staff, and faculty, who might be struggling to handle anti-Asian hate and violence, Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services put together a resource sheet.

Jeffrey Ng, Psy. D, director of Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services and a licensed clinical psychologist, encouraged those in attendance to be there for their friends, families, and colleagues who might be dealing with acts of discrimination and racism.

“The immediate thought that comes to my mind is just to take the time to listen is so important, to try to be present and to be attuned to what your POC students or colleagues or peers might be sharing with you,” said Ng, who will be moderating a second community convening on March 29. “The validation and the affirmation is so critical for the healing process.”