Good morning,
Last Tuesday night, Yvonne Gu Khan was in shock.
Her restaurant, Gu's Dumplings, is just 3.5 miles south of the Gold Massage Spa and Aromatherapy Spa in Atlanta, where four Asian women were shot and killed earlier that evening--along with four other deaths at Young's Asian Massage in nearby Acworth, Georgia. Quickly, Khan assessed her building's security and was reassured to remember that guards lock the doors after 9 p.m. "We feel pretty safe," she tells Inc. "But at the same time, we're terrified."
The motives of the assailant, who was apprehended later that night in south Georgia, may have been at least partly racially motivated. The incident hits home for many business owners of Asian and Pacific-Islander descent, some of whom have experienced more racism during the pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic, which, in some circles, has been blamed on China, has been accompanied by a shocking uptick in anti-Asian racism across the country. Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group created last March to combat xenophobia and bigotry against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., has counted 3,800 reports of hate incidents over just the past year, from verbal harassment to physical assault. Asian American small-business owners are particularly exposed: 60 percent of Asian American-owned small businesses are in service industries, according to the Washington D.C.-based U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce (USPAACC).
Read our story to learn how some entrepreneurs are responding to a year of racial tension and a week of deep tragedy, and what you can do about it. |
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