Introduction

On October 18, 1986, The Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV) was founded by a group of Asian working-class women mobilizing to halt the rapid increase in violent crimes against New York’s immigrant and working-class Asian communities. CAAAV emerged as a direct response to rising anti-Asian violence across the United States rooted in a legacy of systemic and institutional racism. These attacks were not random in nature but instead formed part of a strategic “state-sanctioned removal” deployed in response to rising national hostility towards Asian Americans and local white anxiety as New York shifted into a “majority minority” city for the first time [1].

“Because of stereotypes—that Asians make a lot of money, that they are smaller, weaker, and don’t fight back, that they don’t report crimes to the police or other authorities—Asians are seen as desirable victims.” [2]

The 1980s and 1990s saw a major escalation in anger directed toward Asian Americans as they became the scapegoats for the country’s economic troubles and were routinely portrayed as deviant and undesirable threats to national stability and prosperity. These perceptions of the racial group were juxtaposed with the myth of the model minority which supposed that Asian Americans had achieved a higher socioeconomic status in comparison to the general population. The perpetuation of this narrative harmed efforts to acknowledge that Asian Americans also suffered from extensive discrimination and racial prejudice in the public and private sectors, resulting in unequal access to education and employment opportunities, public services, police protection, healthcare, and the court system. According to a national poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC in the spring of 1991, the majority of American voters believed that Asian Americans were not discriminated against in the United States and had received “too many special advantages” [3]. CAAAV sought to dispel these false beliefs and highlight the difficulties faced by Asian immigrants and working-class individuals living in New York. 

Illustration of police brutality by Jee Mee Kim

CAAAV Digital Archive

Backlash to recent demographic shifts also emerged during this era. Between 1980 and 1990, non-Hispanic whites declined from 52.4% of the city population to just 43.2%, still comprising the largest ethnic group but no longer the majority [4]. In response, white residents began to fear their neighborhoods would be overtaken by Black, Hispanic, and Asian minority groups, precipitating a rise in slurs and hate crimes against people of color who transgressed racial boundaries into primarily white territory and occupations. Racially motivated attacks like the 1982 and 1986 murders of Chinese American Vincent Chin and Black American Michael Griffith serve as prime examples of the increased dangers Asian and other minority communities faced from white civilians as the twentieth century came to a close. 

“Rampant police brutality—unrecognized by state institutions and law enforcement agencies—represents the most visible form of violence perpetrated against Asian communities in New York City” [5].

One avenue in which violence against Asian Americans was enacted came through the New York Police Department (NYPD), which assumed the role of arbiters of who did and did not belong in public spaces across the city. Racist assumptions about the criminality of Asian American communities frequently accompanied police practice in these areas, with residents being unreasonably questioned about their supposed gang affiliations. Difficulties with communication between police officers and immigrants of Asian descent, many of whom possessed limited English proficiency, often escalated incidents between the two groups from minor misunderstandings to major cases of police brutality. “When an Asian person is slow to respond to police orders, he or she is presumed to be ‘insubordinate’ as opposed to simply needing a translator” [6].

While interacting with Asian Americans, NYPD officers routinely employed racial slurs such as "gook, dot head, or chink" [7]. They were prone to exhibit callous and belligerent behavior toward Asian Americans, brutalizing them for the crime of simply existing within the city. Violence inflicted ranged from unjustified arrests and entrapment to excessive use of force and killings. The NYPD’s reign of terror ignited CAAAV’s membership who committed themselves to engaging in anti-police brutality campaigns, championing the stories of Asian New Yorkers whose well-being was jeopardized by officers who had pledged to protect them but instead did the opposite [8].

CAAAV’s roots in anti-police brutality work can be traced back to their ardent support for the Wong and Woo family. In January 1987, two white officers from the 5th Precinct forcibly entered the Wong’s Chinatown apartment, assaulted the four family members inside, and arrested them on false charges. CAAAV swiftly responded by organizing Chinatown residents and outside Asian American communities to protest this blatant act of police brutality by packing the courtroom during the family’s hearings, distributing petitions, attending rallies, and meeting with city officials. On July 28, 1987, 200 Chinatown residents delivered a community indictment of the 5th Precinct condemning its complicity in the violent attack. These efforts eventually led to all charges being dropped against the family [9].

Two and a half years later in the fall of 1989, the case officially ended with a settlement from the city amounting to $80,000 and an additional $10,000 from Manhattan Cable TV. Despite achieving this personal victory for the family, CAAAV’s persistent demonstrations at the District Attorney’s office and police precinct failed to bring indictments against the officers involved—a painful precursor to the continual struggles Asian Americans would face throughout the 1990s to secure justice for the violence perpetrated against their communities at the hands of the NYPD who routinely eschewed full accountability for their actions. 

By the spring of 1992, half of all the cases CAAAV had worked on over the preceding six years centered around police violence. [10]

As this digital exhibition demonstrates, NYPD officers often had few reservations using their positions of authority to inflict violence against Asian Americans. At the same time, New York’s Asian communities did not sit back and let these injustices persist without opposition. They were determined to reclaim their right to live in peace in the city they called home. CAAAV’s tireless activism, protest organizing, educational outreach, and coalition building during the late 1980s and 1990s succeeded in galvanizing Asian Americans across New York City to rise up and demand that the safety of their communities be guaranteed by the officers employed to protect it. 

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[1] Vivian Troung, “From State-Sanctioned Removal to the Right to the City: The Policing of Asian Immigrants in Southern Brooklyn, 1987-1995,” Journal of Asian American Studies, February 2020, 61. 

[2] CAAAV, “Asians Dying For Work,” CAAAV Voice Newsletter, Spring 1994, 5. 

[3] Arthur A. Fletcher, et al., Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s: A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, February 1992, 1. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/135906NCJRS.pdf. 

[4] Edward B. Fiske, “Minorities a Majority in New York,” New York Times, March 22, 1991. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/22/nyregion/minorities-a-majority-in-new-york.html. 

[5] CAAAV, “The Racial Justice Committee Fighting Police Brutality,” CAAAV Voice Newsletter, Winter 1997, 2.

[6] CAAAV, “Police Brutality” CAAAV Voice Newsletter, Fall 1993, 2.  

[7] CAAAV, “Police Brutality in Asian American Communities,” CAAAV Voice Newsletter, Winter 1996, 3.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Van Anh Tran. CAAAV Archive Timeline. https://www.sutori.com/es/historia/caaav-archive--7XzW84LroTrvbu29nfN85oxH. 

[10] CAAAV, “Why We Need Civilian Oversight of the Police” CAAAV Voice Newsletter, Spring 1992, 2.