Anti-Asian hate in US: Remembering Kuan Chung Kao, how racism and police violence killed man with a new job
Anti-Asian bigotry and violence are not a new concept in America, even if a certain section of the country may actively choose to deny it. “The Chinese virus”, a narrative actively spread by former President Donald Trump, is “an update of a very old trope, and a long-offensive one,” noted the Washington Post’s Jeff Chang.
In just the last couple of weeks, the country has witnessed a shooting spree where eight people, mostly Asians, were shot dead at three massage parlors in Atlanta and nearby Cherokee County in Georgia. It also saw a 59-year-old Filipino-Chinese travel agent get brutally attacked in San Francisco. It also saw a Seattle church vandalized with anti-Asian hate speech -- for the fourth time in a year. These are just a few incidents of rising anti-Asian hatred in the U.S., something that even studies have demonstrated.
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But this bigotry did not begin with Trump. The 1875 Page Act that sought to ban sex workers from “China, Japan or any Oriental country,” and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act are historical milestones commemorating this bigotry. And as far as landmarks go, there are way too many. One of them is the story of Kuan Chung Kao, a Taiwan-born engineer. It’s a dreadful tale. But one that needs to be revisited to demonstrate the systemic racism experienced by Asian-Americans.
On the evening of April 28, 1997, Kao went to the Cotati Yacht Club near Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, where he lived with his wife and three children. He was celebrating a new job. As per a bartender working there, the 33-year-old father of three got in an argument with a customer, who allegedly mistook him for Japanese and then, doubling down on his racism, said: “You all look alike to me.”
While the situation was defused then, later in the evening, the man returned to just to pick a fight with the engineer celebrating and minding his own business. He allegedly said more inflammatory things to Kao, who was unnerved by the experience. “I’m sick and tired of being put down because I’m Chinese,” Kao shouted. “If you want to challenge me, now’s the time to do it.”
This led to an altercation after which the police were called. Kao was sent home in a cab by the bartender, who said the bar fight was inconsistent with Kao's usual behavior, who described him as a “caring and friendly” patron.
But the incident had affected Kao more than one could have imagined. He reportedly had an alcohol-induced breakdown in his front yard once home. Kao shouted outside his house late into the night. He cried, "Neighbors, please help me!" This alarmed his neighbors, who placed about a dozen calls to 911.
When two officers – Jack Shields and Mike Lynch – arrived, Kao was reportedly standing in his driveway, holding a stick. The cops drew their sidearms and repeatedly instructed Kao to drop the stick. Kao refused and began striking the police cars with the stick, which was described as a broom handle three feet to four feet long. He also responded with profanities.
He had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.23 percent. It’s the amount of alcohol that makes you feel confused and disoriented and nauseated. You may have trouble standing. You may not even feel pain. Needless to say, Kao was not in his senses and was likely more of a threat to himself than anyone else. Yet, the police officers did not consider that. What they considered was abjectly racist.
Officer Jack Shields fired a single .40-caliber round into Kao's chest. His wife Ayling Wu Kao, a nurse, tried to save him but was restrained. "I tried to approach my husband to get the stick away from him, but the police officer told me to back off," she said. I trusted him. Then he shot my husband," she said. By the time paramedics arrived some ten minutes later, Kao was already dead.
Why was Kuan Chung Kao shot?
A police spokesman later said that he had been waving the stick “in a threatening martial-arts fashion.” Another spokesperson reportedly described the five-foot-seven-inch Kao – described in a newspaper report as “pudgy, lachrymose and clearly soused” – as a “ninja fighter.” Kao was, unsurprisingly, not a ninja. He had never studied martial arts. A warrant was executed the next day, and the police combed through Kao's house for evidence of martial arts training or paraphernalia. None was found.
Yet, the police said the shooting was justified. Kao wasn't a genuine threat to "anyone but himself," noted San Francisco Examiner’s Scott Winokur. “There should have been a better way to deal with him. But the Sonoma County district attorney's office didn't think so, and it cleared the cop, Jack Shields.”
Kao was supposed to start his new job – the one he was celebrating at the Cotati Yacht Club – a week later on May 5, 1997. Unfortunately, the day ended up witnessing his cremation. What happened to Kao is a classic example of anti-Asian bigotry. Something that was asserted even back then. "There's definitely a racial taint in the way police officers dealt with the situation. There's no other way to conclude he knew anything about martial arts other than that he was Asian," said Lisa Lim, director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco.
Kao’s crime was a drunken misdemeanor at best. And it was justified. He felt racially targeted. He felt helpless and belittled. But what he received for that was more racism, which goes to show that neither police violence, nor anti-Asian bigotry has changed much in the last 25 years.