The San Francisco Family 1 Year Anniversary of the Death of Thai Grandfather Vicha Ratanapakdee – CBS San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – On their last night together, father and daughter watched the news and shared a good night kiss on the cheek. Next morning, Vicha Ratanapakdee was assaulted while walking in San Francisco and diedbecame another Asian victim of violence in America.

On Sunday, Monthanus Ratanapakdee will one year anniversary about her father’s death with a protest in the San Francisco neighborhood where the 84-year-old man was killed. She will join hundreds of people in five other US cities, all seeking justice for Asian Americans who have been harassed, assaulted, and even killed in alarming numbers. since the pandemic started.

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A man and woman have been arrested following the January 28 attack near Fortuna and Anzavista avenues that left Ratanapakdee with life-threatening injuries. He died two days later.

Last July, Supervisor Catherine Stefani proposes a name change Sonora Lane, located just south of Geary Avenue and east of Masonic Avenue, is known as Vicha Ratanapakdee Way.

Ratanapakdee, who grew up in Thailand, feels compelled to speak up so people don’t forget the gentle glasses-wearing man who cares for her young nieces and encourages her to pursue an education. issue in the US.

“I really want my father’s death not in vain,” said Ratanapakdee, 49, a food safety inspector for the San Francisco Unified School District. “I don’t want anyone to feel this pain.”

Asians in America have long suffered from prejudice and discrimination, but powerful escalation attacks after the coronavirus first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China. More than 10,000 hostilities against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been reported to Stop the hate alliance AAPI from March 2020 to September 2021. Cases involving avoidance, racist taunts, and physical assault.

In San Francisco and elsewhere, news reports showed videos and photos of older Asians being robbed and beaten, bruised and stabbed in public streets.

Last week, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Sheriff Bill Scott highlighted an increase in hate crimes against the city’s Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. as seen in the new statistics from the police department.

At a press conference Tuesday in the city’s Chinatown, Breed and Scott talked about preliminary police data shows that the number of AAPI hate crime victims in San Francisco has increased from 9 victims in 2020 to 60 victims in 2021, an increase of nearly 600%.

Breed said the data doesn’t even tell the whole story and pledged to work with the police department to raise awareness and protect, especially as the Lunar New Year celebrations approach.

“It’s just the people who report those crimes. I know that there are some people who don’t report those crimes,” Breed said. “We want to make sure people feel safe, we want to make sure people feel comfortable reporting. We are actively in the recruitment process with the police agency. We’re doing everything we can because the department has some COVID absentees to fill those officers with overtime so we can make sure these communities are protected as we promised. “

Breed has blamed the rise in hate crimes in the city and across the country on former President Donald Trump and his rhetoric during the start of the COVID pandemic.

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Famous nationwide victims include Michelle Go, 40, who died after an unstable mentally ill man shoved her in front of the New York City subway earlier this month. In March, a gunman fatally shot eight people at three massage spas in Georgia, including six Asian women between the ages of 44 and 74. Officials disagreed whether those attacks were valid. racially motivated or not, but the death has Asian-Americans bewildered. view bias.

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Organizers said Sunday’s events in San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles were to honor victims, unite and demand more attention to discrimination. against Asians. But organizers say they also want to spark conversation in a community where both long-time Americans and newer immigrants often lump together as forever foreigners.

“The little window of vision we have with the ‘Stop Hate Asians’ movement, it’s really just a glimpse of what Asian Americans feel every day, which is disrespect. The respect and contempt that is common to our parents, our language, our family,” said Charles Jung, a Los Angeles-based employment attorney and executive director of the American Bar Association. Asia Pacific in California said.

“What we really want is to encourage Asian Americans to tell their stories,” he said, “and ultimately break the silence.”

Vicha Ratanapakdee and his wife live with Monthanus, their eldest daughter, her husband and the couple’s two sons, now 9 and 12 years old. knock him to the ground. Ratanapakdee died two days later, never regaining consciousness.

“My mom told me that day was the best day for my dad. He’s happy to be out,” said Monthanus Ratanapakdee. “But it was a bad day for us, because he never came back.”

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin charged Watson, who is black, with murder and elder abuse but not with hate crimes, to the dismay of the family. Watson’s attorney, Sliman Nawabi, said his client was not motivated by race, and that the assault stemmed from a mental health breakdown.

Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Center for Community Development in Los Angeles, which was participating in Sunday’s protest, said the brutal attack on Ratanapakdee, captured in surveillance video, spooked Thai immigrants. His murder, and the overwhelming support from other Asian-American communities, made them rethink their place in the United States, she said.

“It really sparked this sense among Thai immigrants,” she said, “that they are part of something bigger.”

As in Los Angeles, organizers at the Pan-Asian Community Service Center in Atlanta said they invited local elected leaders and community advocates to speak. Attendees will view a recorded message from Monthanus Ratanapakdee and pause for a moment of national silence.

Bonnie Youn, an Atlanta protest organizer and board member for the auto organization said: “While much remains to be done, the country has come a long way since 1982 when two White man in Detroit is upset about losing his auto job to Japan. Georgia Asia Pacific American Bar Association.

A judge sentenced two men to probation, saying they were not the type to go to jail.

Compare that to the March 16 shootings in Atlanta and a northern suburb, Youn said, as journalists worked to make sure the Asian names of the six women killed were correctly pronounced and their stories were correctly pronounced. they are told sensitively.

Monthanus Ratanapakdee says her father values ​​education and encouraged her more than two decades ago to pursue a master’s degree in business at the University of California at Berkeley. After quitting his job at the bank, he spent time with her family in San Francisco.

She felt her father’s spirit, telling her to be strong. She plans to tell Asian Americans to also be strong as they unite to “speak up” for justice.

“We have to be one to move forward together, protect each other and make us equal with others,” she said. “We all live under the same ‘Asian American’ umbrella.”

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