S.

A gunman accused of killing eight people in the state of Georgia has been charged with murder.

The 21 year old was arrested after a shooting spree at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

Most of the victims were women of Asian descent.

The killings have prompted outrage among some rights groups, who say the violence is part of a recent surge in anti Asian hate crimes.

DWS BASTION Heartache reports now from New York on a growing sense of insecurity in the city's Asian community.

Every day, Esther Barroso Gerson makes her way from her workplace to the post office to the West Village in lower Manhattan, usually considered a safe area in New York City.

But one day about a year ago, she experienced something that she hasn't been able to forget right about here.

As I was on the phone, someone was so close from behind me, came from here and then just started spitting at me.

At the time, cases of Covid 19 were surging in New York City, then President Donald Trump was pushing anti Asian rhetoric, calling it the China virus, making people of Asian descent people like Esther, a target for racist Attackers.

I just kept yelling at him.

Why would you do this?

Why would you do this right at this time?

And he yelled at me because you're sick.

For weeks, she says she couldn't walk these streets without constantly looking over her shoulder.

And even now there is some scars from that day that haven't healed.

It's the feeling of being violated, that feeling of, um, not being alone and the feeling of disgust.

Those three things are kind of hard to, uh, erase from my memory.

Anti Asian hate crimes have surged all over the United States in the past year.

In New York City alone, their number has increased more than eightfold.

Activists say That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Many victims often don't want to come forward.

I don't want to speak to the police.

New York Police Department has set up a specific task force to reach out to the Asian American community.

Okay, a lot of them don't speak the language.

A lot of them are undocumented.

They're afraid of coming to the police.

A lot of them want to cooperate cause they don't want to miss work they also fear retaliation.

This task force builds that bridge to that community of victims.

We convince them we get, we gain the cooperation.

We tell them the benefits of cooperating.

We have officers who speak their language have similar heritage, a step in the right direction.

But for many New York's Asian American community, not nearly enough to tackle a problem that's plagued them since the very beginning.

Manhattan's Chinatown is one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves.

The first Chinese migrants settled down here back in the 18 fifties, and the recent increase in anti Asian hate crimes is just the latest flare up in a long history of anti Asian sentiment, which is just as old as the migration from Asia to the United States itself, especially in times of national crisis.

Like now, during the pandemic, Americans of Asian descent have repeatedly been made the scapegoat for the country's plight.

We are known as a perpetual foreigners with permanent foreigners.

You can be here for many, many generations and there's always assumptions because of the way we look.

People stay, where are you from?

Where are you really from?

Right and when we say But we're from here.

Nobody believes you.

So I think it's easy to, um, target and victimize people that you don't think along here and that you don't think are Americans.

And I think that's the full underlying system of you know, of racism in this country.

Despite what she's experienced, Mr Barroso, Carson still considers the US her home.

She's been here for more than 20 years, and she hasn't given up hope that things will one day get better.

If people educate themselves, they end up being more informed.

They end up being kinder.

Um, I think then hatred against other Racists would eventually stop.

But for now, many Asian Americans remain vigilant as every new attack further fans, the fear among their community mhm.