UPDATE:Hate Crime: Who Committed It?
02/22/2006
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Shan-Yuan Ho is a former US Tae Kwon Do Olympian, who now teaches kickboxing at MIT, in between math classes.

She was the victim of anti-Asian, anti-immigrant violence in her youth. That's why she took up martial arts.

The Boston Globe refers to these attacks, but they've left out one usual hate-crime detail: the race of the attackers.

Born in Taiwan, the oldest of three children, Ho was raised just outside San Francisco on the tough streets of Daly City. There, Ho recalls, she was teased for her Asian heritage, mocked for speaking her native Mandarin, and, every once in awhile, jumped by knife-wielding neighborhood thugs.

One time, she says, one of those thugs slashed her leg. More often, she was simply punched, kicked, knocked down, or bashed about the face. ''I have been knocked unconscious," she says. ''I've been unconscious before. That was really bad." But Ho, sufficiently scared, did not run. She decided to train instead. At age 11, she took up taekwondo. Immortal combat: This martial artist's in it for the fight, By Keith O'Brien, The Boston Globe, February 19, 2006

But the Globe doesn't say who these attackers were, or why Daly City had such "tough streets." I can answer the second question for sure:

Cities that were largely non-Hispanic white in 1970, like South Gate in Southern California and Daly City in Northern California, have become largely Hispanic. Immigration and California Communities By William A.V. Clark,February 1999, Center for Immigration Studies

Which kind of suggests the answer to the first question, doesn't it? But we'll never know for sure, because it doesn't say. Now, is the Boston Globe reporter deliberately concealing the facts here, or did it not even occur to him to ask? Inquiring minds want to know.

But "inquiring minds" aren't to be found in the Main Stream Media, are they?

Update: Two readers have written in to point out that Asians are frequently the victims of racist harassment and violence by blacks, rather than Hispanics. I'm aware of this, I'm just...er...stereotyping Daly City. But for a harrowing story of black violence against Asians see Black Racism: The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name,? by Ying Ma. [ The American Enterprise, November/December 1998]

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