“Today we remember Vicha Ratanapakdee, a beloved grandfather in our Southeast Asian San Francisco community whose death on January 28, 2021 struck a resounding chord among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities amid a surge in anti-Asian violence, racism, and xenophobia. 

A year later, there continues to be a high number of racist attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs)s. Stop AAPI Hate received a total of 10,370 reports of hate incidents against AAPIs across the U.S. between March 19, 2020 and September 30, 2021 — a majority of which took place in public.   Public streets (31.2% of incidents) and businesses (26.8% of incidents) remain the top sites of anti-AAPI hate. While a majority of the incidents reported to our site were not hate crimes, hate incidents have proved to have a similarly devastating impact on our communitiesy. 

As communities across the nation gather to remember Ratanapakdee, we join other advocates in demanding urgent action from key decision-makers to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. A Stop AAPI Hate survey showed that the three solutions most favored by AAPI communities to address anti-Asian hate are education, community-based safety solutions and civil rights enforcement. We are looking to our elected leaders — locally and nationally — to make a real commitment to protecting our communities and our elders by investing in these solutions.”