Item 31 - Resolution Condemning Racism Xenopobia and Hate against Asian Americans

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Resolution No. 2021-XXX Page 1 of 2 RESOLUTION 2021-XXX A RESOLUTION OF THE SANTA ANA CITY COUNCIL CONDEMNING RACISM, XENOPHOBIA, AND HATE AGAINST ASIAN AMERICANS WHEREAS, the City of Santa Ana is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and advancing social justice for people of all races, ethnicities, and national origins; and WHEREAS, the City of Santa Ana is home to an estimated 332,318 residents, of which 12.1 percent—or approximately 40,210 residents—are of Asian or Pacific Islander descent; and WHEREAS, the first Asians arrived in what is now the continental United States in the 1500s but are still perceived as “perpetual foreigners”; and WHEREAS, no city, including the City of Santa Ana, has escaped the history of hateful actions against Asians; and WHEREAS, Orange County’s first Chinatown, located in the heart of Santa Ana, was burned to the ground due to racist and xenophobic falsehoods spread about its Asian residents; and WHEREAS, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian violence and discrimination, including the Page Act of 1875 which prohibited Chinese women from entering the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which prohibited any Chinese laborer from immigrating to the United States, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as authorized by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt through Executive Order 9066 in 1942, and murders of Asian Americans such as Vincent Chin; and WHEREAS, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, racist and xenophobic rhetoric such as “kung flu” and “China virus” was proliferated by former President Trump, which contributed to an unprecedented and alarming rise in reported hate crimes against individuals, communities, and businesses perceived to be Asian throughout the United States; and WHEREAS, from March 19, 2020 through February 28, 2021, Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition aimed at addressing anti-Asian discrimination amid the COVID-19 pandemic, received reports of over 3,795 hate incidents in the United States against those believed to be Asian; and WHEREAS, throughout American history, Asian women have been fetishized, sexualized, and objectified; and WHEREAS, on March 16, 2021, a white man targeted three Asian American-owned businesses in Georgia and murdered eight people, six of whom were Asian women who he fetishized, sexualized, and objectified in order to eliminate his “temptations”; and