Sen. Tammy Duckworth on hate crimes, racism and environmental justice

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) has recently been dealing with racism on several fronts, particularly against Asian Americans. A bill aimed at preventing anti-Asian hate crimes during the epidemic Bipartisan raised support Last week, sponsored by Senator Mazi Hirono (D-HI) and endorsed by Duckworth. And after criticism from Duckworth and Hirono over the lack of Asian American and Pacific Islands (AAPI) in his cabinet last week, President Joe Biden Announced That Erica Moritsugu will be in the role of Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Assistant to the Asian and Pacific Islands.

In March, Duckworth released a memoir detailing her childhood as a fraternity child growing up in Southeast Asia and Hawaii. The Reporter Door Duckworth spoke with her about how those experiences now informed her work, and how she is navigating her role during a time dramatically associated with racism in the US.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

As an Asian American woman, I am still recovering from the murders in Atlanta last month, and feel a steady stream of attacks against people who look like me and my elders.

What do you like to see the recent rise in violence against Asian Americans, specifically against Asian American women?

This is something I’m bringing to the attention of my colleagues: the fact that, yes, we have one 150 percent increase Last year alone reported hate crimes against Asian Americans. Rs 3,800. They were the ones who were reported.

About two-thirds of the people were against Asian women. And so it’s really affecting how I’m doing what we’re doing. Mazi Hirono and I, along with Senator Richard Blumental, are moving forward with this anti-racism bill. But one of the things that is going to be an amendment for this is that we need to recognize that, how do we classify a crime because being motivated by race is not really right. So, for example, a lot of crimes against AAPI are listed as robbery or robbery. But if your motivation for the person you want to be a victim of is robbed, based on racism, such as you are specifically selecting Asian American women, or you are choosing older Asian American women like my 80s. -If old mother, then she should be reported as a hate crime and not as mugging or theft.

And so for me, seeing what happened last year … I’ve always known that Asian women were targeted, but the little data we have clearly indicates that two of those crimes The third is directly targeting Asian women I have always known instinctively. It bothers me a lot because my mom is very independent and she goes out and she drives and she goes shopping, and I know she’s a potential target, and I worry about her.

I have the same concerns as my parents. thank you for sharing.

You have supported and supported the Black Lives Matter movement Asked the DOJ to investigate Police treatment of Army Second Lieutenant Caron Nazario, who is Black and Hispanic and was sprayed with pepper while in uniform during a traffic stop in Virginia. Can you talk with me about why those issues are important to you?

We should not fight each other over a piece of the diversity pie. I am tired of the black community against the Latin community, standing against the Asian community. We all should have a seat at the table.

I tried to be a good collaborator in the Black Lives Matter movement last summer, and I really learned a lot from my staff members. So I hope that my work as a senator will now be transferred, trying to be each other’s ally.

You confronted the White House about the lack of AAPI representation in the President’s Cabinet. Why is that a problem? What do you see as the consequences of excluding Asian Americans and the Pacific Islands?

I have been working with the Biden administration for a long time – such as for six months – advancing the names of well-qualified Asian Americans and Pacific Islands for top cabinet positions. And I voted for every candidate, which they put forward. I voted for everyone, whether they were Whites, Blacks, Native American, Latinx. Time and time again I was told that there were going to be cabinet-level AAPI candidates. And then we had 15 cabinet secretaries nominated and not one of them was AAPI. And there were well qualified AAPI candidates who were not even interviewed. It was very disappointing for me, and it led to a conversation where a member of the White House team basically said, “Well you have Kamala, that should be enough.” I was incredibly annoyed, and I said wait a minute, you’d never say, “We have a white male president, which should be enough. We shouldn’t need to nominate any more white male cabinet secretary. You You wouldn’t say the Black Caucus. You wouldn’t say that for the Latinx Caucus. Why would you say Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders?

Representation is important because the government has to look like the people who represent it. This is the first time in 20 years that we do not have a single cabinet secretary in the Republican or Democratic administration that is AAPI. This is not good for the nation.

In your memoir, you describe how growing up in South-East Asia, your experiences are being made two-dimensional. And you write about how America’s history of segregation and racism may have influenced your American father’s decision to return to the US – because his marriage to your mother, who is Thai Chinese, was illegal in some states, When they met in the 1960s. How have all those experiences shaped your work today?

Well, if you read my memoir, you know that there are subjects of both prejudice and racism, but then structural racism also exists. My parents were not legally considered married when they met. So there are racist structures in our society – even though we probably never thought of them as racist – and it really affected how I look at the work I do today.

Picture: Tammy Duckworth’s Office

For example, with environmental justice, we continue to grant permits to industries on a lump sum basis without looking at them cumulatively. So you have exposed the black and brown communities to high amounts of pollutants because where we have always planted the petok industry, now we are going to put ethylene oxide industry, and then we are going to recycling manganese there. And this is only going into those communities because the structure of how we allow it does not look at the cumulative effect.

So when I started the Environmental Justice Caucus with Senator Tom Carper and Senator Corey Booker, I instinctively understood that there are systems in place that are inherently unequal, and that we have to elevate communities of color to a uniform level, and Then one has to make investments across the board. It’s not like we’re going to say “Well, we’re going to give $ 50,000 to a rich white suburb and we’re going to give $ 50,000 to a poor black suburb as well. That’s equal, right?” Well, no – Because of history and things, is not on the same level. So I think it really does what I am trying to do today and how do I get my job done.