Statement of 9to5 Executive Director Leng Leng Chancey

MILWAUKEE — This week, the Appleton Common Council declined to support a resolution condemning xenophobia, racism and anti-Asian violence, instead referring the resolution back to committee. Leng Leng Chancey, the executive director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, issued the following statement:

“9to5, National Association of Working Women stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in Wisconsin and across the country. Working women — especially women of color — and our allies will never stop fighting to disrupt and dismantle white supremacy, xenophobia, violence, inequality and injustice in all forms. 

“We are disappointed and outraged at the Appleton Common Council’s action to push back the resolution condemning anti-Asian violence and outraged by the move to rewrite it rather than to respect the voices of the AAPI community. 

“Amid the alarming rise of anti-Asian violence over the last year — two thirds targeting Asian women — the AAPI community has also acutely felt the pain and horror of two recent mass shootings, in which six Asian women were targeted in three Atlanta-area spa killings, mere weeks before four members of Indiana’s Sikh community were killed in a mass shooting at their workplace inside an Indianapolis FedEx facility

“While news of these horrific attacks and newly reported data on the epidemic of violence, harassment and discrimination experienced by AAPI people may have only recently begun to bring the reality and lived experience of anti-Asian racism and violence into the wider public consciousness, bigotry and hatred toward AAPI people are nothing new.

“From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II to demonization and the mistreatment of Muslims and Sikhs after 9/11, this year is just one of many in this nation’s long history of racism and violence against the AAPI people. We refuse to allow more whitewashing of our history through the continued erasure and exclusion of AAPI people and stories.

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