Vietnamese Man, 60, Attacked in Uptown: Report

CHICAGO, IL— A 60-year-old Vietnamese man was assaulted in Uptown last weekend, Block Club Chicago reported.

The victim's daughter told the local news outlet that she spoke out about her father's attack after encountering difficulties reporting the incident to police, who she wants to investigate the assault as a hate crime. The process of reporting such attacks can be riddled with language and other barriers for victims of anti-Asian hate crimes.

The attack took place in Uptown's Asia on Argyle area, a historical district with restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, and a cultural center for Chinese and Southeast Asians on the North Side of Chicago.

According to Block Club, the man left his home around 11 p.m. on March 20 to go for a walk. While at the intersection of Broadway near Ainslie Street, a man approached him from behind and punched him in the head. He turned around to see the man holding a baseball bat and staring at him, his daughter said.

The victim made it home safely, but his family worries this is just the beginning of more hate crimes against Asian Americans in their community. In the past year, racist attacks and comments have spiked in the United States as misinformation spread surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

In the same week the Asian man in Chicago was attacked, a gunman in Georgia killed eight people, six of them Asian women.

Asian communities around Chicago have been on high alert since the shooting, but also have worked to grow education on the history of racism in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, pay remembrance to victims of such crimes and offer bystander training to learn how to prevent them.

Chicago Police told Block Club Chicago in a statement the department is working with leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community to protect against possible attacks, and that is “maintaining an ongoing police presence” in neighborhoods with large Asian populations.

On Friday evening, more than 300 people gathered for a prayer vigil at Horner Park in Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood to mourn the lives of the six Asian American women killed in Atlanta last week, according to a statement from the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.

Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the group, addressed the vigil, citing reports that the majority of anti-Asian violence is reported by women.

"Failing to acknowledge these intersecting oppressions is a disservice to those lost and their loved ones, and to the millions of Asian women who continue to face racialized misogyny, worsened by the escalation of anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic."

According to Block Club, groups like Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Uptown’s Chinese Mutual Aid Association are also working on bystander training to prevent attacks and social awareness campaigns.

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