SAN FRANCISCO – Mrs. Cheng feels like she’s living under siege in her own home.
In January, an 83-year-old neighbor, also a Chinese immigrant, was beaten into a coma. Days after he died in March, Mrs. Cheng, 53, was attacked and pushed off a public-transit platform, coming to minutes later with front teeth knocked out and her mouth full of blood.
Both attacks happened within a block of her house. Now Mrs. Cheng avoids going out, gets rides to work and keeps her two daughters close to home. She doesn’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation, but she doesn’t want too much to be made of what happened to her, either. She repeatedly said through a translator that she just wants everyone to live in peace.
Still, such attacks and the death of a Chinese immigrant from San Francisco who was assaulted during a visit to Oakland have focused the anger of Asian-Americans here, pushing them to vent in emotional rallies their long-simmering perception that they are targets of racially motivated violence. In all cases, the perpetrators were Black teenagers, police said.
Be the first to comment