'It's heartbreaking': Asian Canadians in London speak out after surge in anti-Asian attacks

Asian Canadians in London, Ont. are speaking out after a surge in anti-Asian attacks and a shooting in Atlanta that left six Asian women dead and a community reeling from the trauma.

Eight people, including six Asian women, were killed in the American city on Tuesday night by a white gunman. 

"I just felt heartbroken and sad at first because those are people's lives that were taken and I just felt very heavy, especially because they were Asian women too," said Teigan Elliott, a second-year King's College University student.

Elliott and other students have organized a vigil on March 26 in London to pay tribute to the victims but also to show support for the Asian community in Canada and across the border.

There have been 955 reported incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes across Canada since March 2020, according to data from Fight COVID Racism, a federally-funded project dedicated to tracking and reporting anti-Asian racism and xenophobia in the country.

"As soon as this event happened, [Elliott] reached out to me. She was heartbroken. I was so upset. So we immediately knew that we had to do something," said Ayeza Tahir, a third-year political science student at McMaster University.

"The goal is to have solidarity with other people who have been victims of anti-Asian hate crimes and to remember the victims who have passed away," she said. 

Many Londoners were calling out anti-Asian sentiments in the city several weeks before the attack across the border. Local pub the Ale House posted a billboard that read "Mr Ford, history will show lockdowns caused more damage 2 the public than the China virus!" 

It sparked outrage with the city's mayor, police service, university presidents, alongside federal and provincial politicians all condemning the language.

Yoko Yoshida, a Sociology associate professor at Western University, described feeling shocked when she stumbled upon the Ale House sign. 

Yoshida moved to London this year, and says terminology like the "China virus" only creates more divisiveness and targets the community.

Elliott agrees and wrote an open letter last week calling on the owner of the bar to apologize. 

Alex Petro did change the sign the day after it was posted and said he was not targeting Chinese people, but instead said he was calling out the country's communist party. Elliott says that's not enough. 

"Asians across London who have been hurt, disappointed, or enraged by your actions, who want to express how you have impacted them, are being devalued and invalidated by your supporters," she writes in her letter. "I want you to denounce these people, the ones wishing to refuse the Asian community a platform to speak."

Elliott also noted that even the World Health Organization asks that diseases not be named after people or places.

"There is a history of using a minority group as a scapegoat during a pandemic [who] is then attacked, discriminated against, harmed."