Diversity in Practice: Responding to the Rise in Anti-Asian Discrimination

As part of MoFo’s effort to commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, our Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Natalie Kernisant welcomes California Assemblyman David Chiu and MoFo Litigation Partner Bonnie Lau to the podcast to take a hard look at the recent rise in anti-Asian discrimination and how misinformation, fear, and racist political rhetoric tied to COVID-19’s origins in China have fueled hate and violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across the country. They also explore America’s long history of anti-Asian hate and discrimination, the relationship between the AAPI community and other marginalized communities in this country, the need for broad based, community-led public safety initiatives, and how these issues affect members of the AAPI community in the professional space.

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to MoFo Perspectives, a podcast by Morrison & Foerster, where we share the perspectives of our clients, colleagues, subject matter experts, and lawyers.

Natalie Kernisant: Welcome to the Diversity and Practice Podcast—a part of MoFo Perspectives. My name is Natalie Kernisant, and I am the chief Diversity and Inclusion officer for Morrison & Foerster. This podcast series is designed to provide a space to discuss a wide variety of issues related to diversity in the law, and to introduce you to some of our talented, diverse attorneys, their areas of legal expertise, and the work that they and their allies do in furtherance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s also our hope that by sharing D&I best practices wherever possible, we can help make the legal industry a more inclusive place for those who are, in the words of our MoFo former chair, Bob Raven, just a little bit different. Since the coronavirus and COVID-19 began spreading in the U.S. in early 2020, there have been well over 3,700 documented attacks on Asian American and Pacific Islanders in this country. And undoubtedly many more that have gone unreported. Many of the attacks have targeted the bay area’s elderly population, misinformation, fear, and racist political rhetoric tied to COVID’s origins in China have fueled sometimes fatal violence against the AAPI communities across the country.

Reporter: Why do you keep calling this “The Chinese virus?” There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country. Your own aid, Secretary Azar, says he does not use this term. He says ethnicity does not cause the virus. Why do you keep using this? A lot of people say it’s racist.

Donald Trump: Because it comes from China. It’s not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China. That’s why. It comes from China.

Natalie Kernisant: California State Assemblyman, David Chiu, a Democrat representing the 17th assembly district, which encompasses the eastern half of San Francisco, joins us today to talk about data collection around the recent verbal and physical attacks. We will also explore America’s long history of anti-Asian hate and discrimination, the relationship between the AAPI community and other marginalized communities in this country, and the need for community led, broad-based, public safety initiatives. Also joining us today is MoFo’s very own Bonnie Lao, a litigation partner in our San Francisco office who focuses on antitrust, unfair competition, RICO, intellectual property, and complex commercial disputes. Bonnie is an active member of the firm’s AAPI affinity network and co-chair of the women’s leadership network of NPABA, the national Asian Pacific American Bar Association, which fosters professional development, legal scholarship, advocacy, and community involvement, and serves as the national voice for the Asian Pacific American legal profession. We will talk to Bonnie about how she sees these issues affecting the AAPI community in the professional space. We will also get her take on what law firms and legal departments might do to better support our colleagues in this moment, as they navigate through fear, exhaustion, and anger to show up each day in an incredibly demanding profession. David, Bonnie, welcome to the podcast.

Bonnie Lau: Thanks so much, Natalie.

David Chiu: Thanks for having us.

Natalie Kernisant: As you both know, we have seen an unprecedented rise in hate crimes targeting our AAPI communities, including the fatal shooting in Atlanta on March 16th, 2021, which took the lives of eight innocent people, six of whom were women of Asian descent. Before we delve more deeply into the topic, I first want to take a minute to ask each of you how the rise in anti-Asian sentiment has impacted you personally. Has it impacted your families and the communities in which you are part of. Perhaps Bonnie, we could start with you.

Bonnie Lau: You know, I think for many who are outside of the AAPI community, this current wave of Asian racism is making headlines, but for us, for our communities, it’s written in our life stories. Asian Americans face bigotry and microaggressions on a widespread basis. You know, sometimes that bigotry is subtle. In this moment, it’s definitely not, but too often, I think our experiences are brushed under the rug due to this myth of the model minority and our perceived levels of white proximity or academic achievement. And so those perceptions make it very easy to ignore and dismiss the anti-Asian sentiment that’s been prevalent in this country for decades, right? Since the 1800s. I think it is frustrating for many of us that have been talking about the racism that we face for decades, that, you know, it takes a mass shooting to get people to listen. But at the same time, I’m really glad this discourse is now happening and that Asians and their allies are really speaking up in taking action in an unprecedented way to combat hate and advance our collective diversity and inclusion goals.

Natalie Kernisant: I couldn’t agree with you more. David, if you had anything you wanted to add.

David Chiu: I think Bonnie really did a good job of outlining the fact that what happened in Atlanta really highlighted for the rest of the country what those of us in the Asian American community have known for our entire lives. And what we’ve been seeing in this past year has been so immediate, impacting so many members of our community. I’ll just say, just last night, I learned about a community leader who I’ve worked with over the years in Oakland, who ironically had been leading the conversation around how to combat anti-Asian hate in the east bay. He himself was assaulted. And then this morning, two hours ago, I was in Chinatown visiting the site of yet another Chinatown storefront that had been vandalized in the past 12 hours. This is it. It is constant. It is intense. It’s happening as we speak, but this is something that our community has been experiencing for a long time.

David Chiu: I was thinking about this topic and the fact that, but for an anti-Asian hate incident that happened my freshman year in college, I may not have become an attorney or be an elected official. I started as a college freshman as a pre-med major—little bit of the Asian stereotype—was finishing all my pre-med requirements. And there was a group of eight Asian students heading to a formal dance that got spat upon, subjected to racial slurs, attacked by a bunch of white football players at a nearby university. This was in 1987. And when the Asian students had asked the university administrators to investigate, they were ignored. The students who attacked them were not disciplined. And I was asked as a student at a nearby school to come in solidarity. And that incident upset me so much that I started studying the civil rights movement, took some political science courses, switched majors, decided to go to law school, became a civil rights attorney. And now 30 plus years later, I grew up on the east coast and now in California and a part of the country where we had all thought we were far more enlightened to see hundreds of these incidents happen on a weekly, almost daily basis is so disheartening, but it’s just a reminder of how much work we have to do to combat this hate.

Natalie Kernisant: Absolutely. Those are awful experiences to have to go through, but I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that we are so lucky that such a hateful incident inspired you to switch careers and dedicate yourself to supporting American civil rights, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. And yes, we do in fact have so much more work left to do in this space, but to Bonnie’s point, we’re finally at a point where not only Asians, but allied communities across race and ethnicity, are really taking action in unprecedented ways to fight this kind of hate and discrimination, including through legislative action. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill in late February that allocated $1.4 million to the stop AAPI hate reporting center, which conducts research and collects reports of anti-Asian discrimination across the country. Shortly thereafter, you and Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi introduced a bill calling for the creation of a toll‑free hotline, an online reporting system for reporting hate crimes and hate incidents. AB557 would require the California Department of Justice to create a statewide system for reporting hate crimes. David, can you tell us a little bit about why AB557 was so important and why you chose to focus specifically on reporting and data collection around these terrible acts of discrimination?

David Chiu: So you mentioned the budget decision that Governor Newsom recently authorized, which was based on a proposal that my Asian colleagues and I had asked the governor to support around data collection. Early on during this pandemic, we knew that we were going to see a spike in anti-Asian hate, and there were three Asian American organizations that came together, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian American Studies Department at SF state, and the Asian Planning and Policy Council down in Los Angeles. And they started tracking this data. And what they have found over the past year is at least close to 4,000 documented incidents of hate. And because they’re based in California, a huge percentage of them have been happening in our state and in Northern California. And we believe that these statistics are only the tip of the iceberg, because there are many reasons why someone may not report. They may not know about this reporting center. They may be reluctant to come out, and we know how important this data is, both in demonstrably showing what the numbers are, but also being able to break down who’s being targeted. So for example, over twice as many attacks are against Asian women then against Asian men. We know that seniors are being attacked. Young people are being attacked. Incredibly disturbing information. This is why we had asked Governor Newsom to continue to support this work, but also why my colleague Al Muratsuchi introduced the bill to establish a 24/7 1-800-HOTLINE to report this. And by the way, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Al and I are former attorneys, we’re former prosecutors. And we know that if you don’t make it easy for folks to report, it’s less likely that incidents will be investigated. It’s less likely that victims will receive the services and the assistance that they need. And that was really the thrust of what we were trying to do. But I’ll mention that this bill AB557 had its origin actually out in the anti-Asian hate, but four years ago in the spike in hate crimes more generally that we saw after Donald Trump was elected. In fact, during that time period in the year after he was elected, we started seeing hate incidents increase against Muslims, anti-Semitic incidents against our Jewish community members. We saw black and Latino community members assaulted. We saw LGBTQ transgender kids assaulted. And I actually proposed that very idea of a 1-800 hate crime hotline four years ago. And it didn’t get to the finish line legislatively. At the time, there was a discussion about whether the expenditure was worth it. And when the anti-Asian hate numbers started increasing, Al Muratsuchi came to me and said, Hey, Chiu, remember that proposal from four years ago that you didn’t get done? What do you think about us reintroducing it to combat what we’re seeing today? And from our perspective, if you’re not tracking what’s happening, if there’s not follow-up, it’s like the proverbial forest and the tree, the tree falling where no one can hear it. Until the stop AAPI hate effort documented 3,700 anti-Asian hate incidents as of the month of March, people don’t know it happens and things like the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta don’t have the context that it needs. And so it’s important to know not just the human stories and the horrific crimes that are occurring, but it’s also to know the broader context of just how often is this happening? Where is it happening? To whom is it happening? And this is why we want to move forward with this hotline, both to track, to ensure that law enforcement is investigating where they need to, and to make sure that victims are being helped.

Natalie Kernisant: And where does the bill stand now?

David Chiu: So we have gotten it through the first major policy committee, our assembly public safety committee. It is now with our assembly appropriations committee, and fingers crossed will be moving it out of that in the next month to the assembly floor.

Natalie Kernisant: So a recent report released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino studied hate crimes in America’s 16 largest cities. The study found that while such crimes in 2020 decreased overall by 7%, those targeting Asian Americans rose by nearly 150%. What do you think accounts for this uptick, and do you think the current social-political climate has affected how people are responding to these types of hate crimes against the AAPI community?

David Chiu: There is no doubt in my mind that, who I refer to our former so-called president, Donald Trump, by his references to the Chinese virus and Kung flu, by emboldening his racist supporters by how he continued to demonize and denigrate and scapegoat our communities, led very directly to the anti-Asian hate we’re seeing.

Donald Trump: To be specific, COVID-19, that name gets further and further away from China, as opposed to calling it the Chinese virus. I can name Kung Flu. I can name 19 different versions of names.

David Chiu: It literally embolden racists to come out of every corner of our country and perpetrate the acts of hate that we’re experiencing. So when stories were first coming to the United States about this new virus out of China and Donald Trump started making the references that he did, I represent San Francisco’s Chinatown, which is the oldest Chinatown in the United States. And we saw before a single COVID case had been diagnosed in California, we saw business in Chinatown drop by 50%. So the restaurants, the storefronts, small businesses saw a massive drop in their revenues due, purely, to discrimination and stereotypes and fear. Somehow this idea that if you’re Chinese or if you’re Asian, you carried the virus. And it wasn’t just San Francisco’s Chinatown. I was speaking to my counterparts who represent both Boston and New York City’s Chinatown. So my good friend, Michelle Wu, who is the first Asian American woman at the moment to represent Boston’s Chinatown, as well as my friend Yuline Yu, who is representing New York City’s Chinatown. They saw a similar drop in business in Chinatowns in their cities, again, before a single case of coronavirus. And as we were saying last February, last March, before we saw the first wave of COVID-19, that our Asian communities were dealing with the virus, not just of COVID-19, but the virus of racism addressing and having to defend ourselves against that twin virus threat. And so I very much put at Donald Trump’s feet the blame for a lot of what’s happening in the failure of his allies, particularly in the Republican Party, for not calling this out and allowing this to fester and catch fire.

Natalie Kernisant: Yeah, and you mentioned when we were speaking about AB557, that it was your second attempt at passing this type of legislation. I wonder if the current political climate has affected how people are responding to efforts to stem anti‑Asian hate. Do you think it’s making people, especially allies across other races and ethnicities, join in responding strongly and aggressively against this type of discrimination now, and are you more hopeful that this bill will pass now?

David Chiu: I am more hopeful. I mean, to go from a president who referred to the Chinese virus and Kung flu to a president who is visiting with the victims and families of this hate, who is calling out very strongly the fact that as a country, we need to unite across every state at every level of government and every sector to address this hate. The fact that we have a vice president of south Asian descent who has been tackling these issues for her entire career. It makes a difference. Leadership at the top really makes really makes a difference. And I do think that certainly after Atlanta, there is a renewed push, not just within the Asian community, but within all communities. And I am very appreciative of the allyship of non-Asian leaders and speaking out against this hate and reminding us that throughout human history, different communities are subjected to hate at different times, right? Certainly our black community knows what the devastation of racism and discrimination has meant to them. Our Jewish community has known what hate and anti-Semitism leads to, and so on and so on and so on. And now, for better, for worse, our community is in the spotlight over these issues. But the allyship has been really tremendous. What I would say is I think we’re at an inflection point where we have to say enough is enough and we have to be bold and aggressive when it comes to what our community needs at this moment to address these root causes and to stamp out the hate that we’re seeing every week.

Natalie Kernisant: As you both have made reference to the acts of hate we witness today are unfortunately part of a long history of xenophobia and racism against the AAPI community in the United States. Racism, legitimized, and reinforced, and punctuated by government actions like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Alien Exclusion Act of 1904, the Alien Land Law of 1913, and the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II that have used Asian Americans as scapegoats for as far back as can be remembered. Unfortunately, the racism that lies at the heart of all of it is silently fueled both by conscious and unconscious biases prevalent in our society today. Take for example the model minority myth and the perpetual foreigner stereotype. When taken together, these myths paint Asian Americans as permanent outsiders who have not only gained acceptance by becoming invisible, but who are also more than content to remain so. Can each of you speak to how these myths work together, not only to deculturate and disempower members of the AAPI community, but also to divide and isolate them from other marginalized groups?

Bonnie Lau: Sure. Natalie, I’m happy to take that first. You know, I completely agree. I think one reason why historically, and even in the current moment, more people aren’t speaking up on the news, particularly where they are Asian American or victims of this conduct, is due to this continued erasure, this AAPI discrimination in the U.S. perpetuated by the model minority myth. And in many ways, it purports to state that economic advancement of some Asian American individuals is a measure that AAPIs as a whole don’t experience racism. Part of that myth is that we stay quiet. We’re apolitical. That the issues we’re experiencing are not valid or not attached to our race. And there’s a continued investment in upholding this myth, and we need to question who benefits from it because it’s certainly not us or other marginalized people.

David Chiu: So I’ll chime in on this on a couple of levels. The anti-Asian hate that we’re seeing in 2020 and 2021 is absolutely rooted in a long trajectory of dark moments in American history leading all the way back to the events that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act. I often think about the fact that it was the California state legislature that I have the honor of serving in right now that over a century ago became the first state legislature to really move forward anti-Chinese laws on the books. It’s remarkable to me that I stand as the first Asian American to represent Eastern San Francisco on the floor where in the 1870s and 1880s my predecessors’ predecessors were railing against our community. And we’ve gone through dark chapters, as you alluded to from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to Japanese American internment, to the murder of Vincent Chen, to the persecution of Muslim Americans after 9-11. And we’re seeing it today. And so this is no surprise, right? It’s a cliché to say that history repeats itself and it really does. But you know, another aspect of your question is around the compounding of stereotypes. And you mentioned one stereotype of the model minority myth, and I think part of that stereotype that Asian Americans all do well, which is not true, but the fact that there’s that stereotype has created a certain level of resentment that manifests sometimes in violent ways. You add to that stereotypes of Asians, of being passive or quiet or not necessarily strong enough to fight back. To me those are stereotypes that lead others to think that they can be victimized. And then I’ll add one other stereotype we haven’t spoken to, and that is the stereotype facing Asian Americans based on gender. So if you look at, say, gender stereotypes of Asian women of being say submissive or exoticized, it’s not surprising what we have learned about the murderer of six Asian women in Atlanta and his views on the workers that he decided to kill. All of these combined to a very disturbing set of stereotypes that lead to the kind of violence that we see. I mentioned before that twice as many Asian women are being assaulted during this time period. I would attribute that to the stereotypes that are again, are based on some very, very false notions of who Asian Americans are, but they are deeply rooted.

Natalie Kernisant: Absolutely. I mean, with respect to the spa shootings in Atlanta, Robert Aaron Long told Cherokee county investigators that he had sexual addiction issues and had targeted the Asian-owned and operated massage parlors in an attempt to remove that temptation. Many, including feminist author, Jessica Valenti, pointed to the racist fetishizing of Asian women that lays at the heart of these attacks and how that in and of itself made this shooting a hate crime. Bonnie, as an Asian American woman, can you speak to what intersectionality is and how the compounded impact of two-isms in this case, sexism and racism, can often be used to confuse and negate both experiences and how you see that playing out here?

Bonnie Lau: Yeah. So as you referenced, the concept of intersectionality or interlocking identities comes from black lesbian feminists who were organizing in the 1970s, and the specific term intersectionality was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, who described it as basically a lens, a prism for seeing the way that various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. You know, we tend to talk about race inequality as if it’s separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality, or immigrant status. And what’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these. As applied here, I think the Atlanta shootings are best understood as the deadly expression of racialized and sexualized stereotypes of Asian women and specifically migrants who work at massage parlors whose low income and immigrant statuses exposed them to this risk. Our country’s wars and military operations throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim have, over many years, reinforced these stereotypes of exploitation. David used the word exoticized, racialized, sexualized violence towards Asian women. And perhaps because of these stereotypes, prosecutors and police are less likely to add hate crime charges in cases of rape and sexual assault targeting Asian women. And Natalie, as you alluded to, contrary to the assumptions of Georgia law enforcement, these women did not become victims simply because of the shooter’s bad day, the Atlanta victims’, race, gender, and class, weren’t separate forms of identity, but all interacted together to result in this horrific tragedy.

Natalie Kernisant: If we could change gears just slightly, I’m struck by the fact that the Atlanta shootings happened against the backdrop of the Chauvin verdict and the recent killing of Dante Wright. And so I can’t help but see certain parallels between the black and Asian struggles for racial justice in America. How do you think we go about rebuilding the bonds between marginalized communities so that we might become more effective allies to one another. Bonnie, I know you’ve been pretty active at the firm in the D&I space, both as an Asian American woman, but also as an ally for other groups here at the firm. So perhaps we start with you.

Bonnie Lau: Absolutely. Natalie, I think it’s incredibly important for diverse groups to band together as allies and advocate for one another, which elevates the power and persuasiveness of all marginalized voices. I feel incredibly grateful to have a broad support network both within and outside the firm and really was moved to tears when friends of all colors reached out to support me in the wake of the Atlanta shootings. To the specific point of how to be an effective ally, I think there’s obviously a lot of different ways, but let me offer a few simple things that I think every one of us can do. And the first is just to support and listen to your Asian American friends and colleagues. Reach out, validate what they’re experiencing and suffering, and offer your support and an empathetic ear. A second is to take bystander intervention training. Anxiety and fear are natural reactions whenever confronted with racist behavior, even as a bystander. And so taking bystander intervention training can help us and prepare us to react safely and in a supportive manner if we witness these incidents of bias, harassment, or violence. There’s a number of fantastic organizations out there doing the work, but one recent training that I attended was hosted by Hollaback, and they offer free trainings for many organizations, and they have a very clear program of five Ds: How to distract, delegate, document, delay, and direct, which really gives you a clear roadmap of what to do if you’re confronted with an incident like this. And then third, it’s really important to support the Asian American community. As David has already explained, Asian businesses nationwide have been hit disproportionately hard during the pandemic between both decreased foot traffic and the rising anti‑Asian xenophobia and derogatory rhetoric around the coronavirus. So make sure that you’re supporting your local Asian-owned businesses and restaurants. Donate to the incredible nonprofits and legal organizations working in this space. If you’re a lawyer, NPABA has partnered with the Alliance for Asian American Justice and created a nationwide pro bono initiative of Asian Fortune 1000 general counsel and many major law firms, including MoFo, to ensure that all victims of hate crimes and biased, motivated incidents are able to access pro bono legal services and protect themselves.

Natalie Kernisant: And David, do you have any thoughts on what aspiring allies might be able to do to effectively and actively engage in support of the AAPI community?

David Chiu: Well, first I want to just thank so many not-Asian allies who have really spoken out to in this time period and understand that at this moment, they’re coming after the Asian American community as they’ve come after other communities in the past and racism and racist individuals have been part of our country forever. And unfortunately, this is our moment, but to have the intersectional coalition building that we have seen in recent weeks and months has been incredibly heartening. There’s a very significant conversation happening right now of what do we do to really eradicate and root out this hate. And there are many, many important conversations that need to be had about what can we do to better patrol our communities. And how do we do that in a criminal justice reform moment that works for all of our community. There’s a conversation of how do we take care of victims who, maybe because of language, maybe because of income, may not be able to get the help that they need. We need more by way of mental health services and victim compensation programs and culturally competent and language access services to address us that. We obviously need to do a better job of patrolling, tracking, and investigating incidents of hate themselves, but also recognize that while there are horrific crimes that occur that are squarely within the purview of law enforcement to address, there are many incidents that occur, say the racial slur yelled across the street where the criminal justice system may not be best equipped to address it, but we need to think of other ways to move forward restorative justice models of building beyond those events, building between perpetrators of, let’s say, hate incidents, which may not rise to the level of a hate crime, and victims. And so that’s an important conversation to have, and then there’s a conversation of, well, how do we ensure that in the long term, we are educating the next generation of Californians and Americans in this. And this is where the conversation around ethnic studies and making sure that everyone is educated on why tolerance and diversity and inclusion and understanding is so important. So these are all things that shouldn’t just be the focus of Asian American advocates, but if our non-Asian allies can work with us, we can hopefully move toward eradicating again, not just anti-Asian hate, but hate more generally.

Natalie Kernisant: So turning back to you, Bonnie, for a moment, I really want to highlight the work that you’ve done in D&I here at MoFo and through your affinity bar engagements. Can you speak to what compels you to be so engaged and furthering D&I in the legal industry, both in this critical moment, but generally speaking?

Bonnie Lau: For me, it’s really personal. I grew up in an immigrant family with very modest resources. I didn’t have lawyers and professionals that I could turn to as I made my way through law school and big law. And so without the influence and mentorship of amazing role models, and I mean both Asian and otherwise, you know, I’m not sure I ever would’ve survived the gauntlet and made it to where I am today. So for me, it’s a deeply personal commitment to make this road a little bit gentler and easier to navigate for diverse attorneys who are currently finding their way. And, with respect to my affinity bar work, this year in particular, obviously has been challenging for everyone. The social isolation, the stresses of COVID-19, have really been unbelievable in what is, as you mentioned already, a very stressful profession. And so I’ve been really honored to serve as the Chair of the Leadership Counsel for Legal Diversity Alumni in this critical time to help guide the organization, and most importantly, just facilitate community in this crazy period. We’ve initiated a lot of really interesting and important racial justice programming in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. And I know all of the alumni are very actively engaged in pushing forward for change in their respective organizations. And as David highlighted, I really feel a similar galvanizing of political and community action in the Asian American community following the Atlanta shootings. And so my personal responsibility and commitment is to turn this tragedy into tangible progress.

Natalie Kernisant: I wonder if you’d also share your thoughts on how anti-Asian hate has and continues to affect our AAPI colleagues as they navigate the professional setting each day, whether it’s mentally, emotionally, or otherwise? Why is this something our organizations and employers should care about?

Bonnie Lau: Anybody who’s suffered grief or loss of a loved one knows that it is deeply impactful. Like you said, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that it affects us in all facets of our lives, and that includes professionally. And David referenced this relentless drumbeat, the daily headlines. The attacks on the Asian American community are much the same. It’s a collective loss and trauma, for some, it’s an intimately personal loss. And so as organizations, as humans, we need to care for and support our people. It’s my hope, I certainly feel this way at MoFo, but it’s my hope that all organizations and employers are recognizing this and doing whatever they need to and can do to provide safe spaces for their Asian employees and allies to connect and share and support one another.

Natalie Kernisant: Bonnie, you had mentioned creating safe spaces, right? That’s one thing that organizations can do to be in allyship with the AAPI community in this moment. David, you alluded to sort of looking at the advancement track and seeing, are Asians equitably represented at every level of the organization? Is there not more to be done in terms of recognizing and interrupting biases and the everyday experience, and what are your thoughts on how that is best executed?

David Chiu: I have two thoughts on that, one just to echo some of Bonnie’s points. These are very traumatic times for our AAPI community. And it’s important for everyone to recognize that as we are seeing the violence and reliving it through all of what is happening, it’s important for folks to take care of themselves, to take of their mental health, to take care of each other during this time period, not just those individuals who’ve been violently attacked and their family members, but the more broader community and sort of the impact of that happening. But I would say, I also heard sort of a different lens to your question of impact of these anti-Asian stereotypes and workplaces and in corporate America. And given that this is Morrison & Foerster’s podcast, and many of the audience are likely big firm attorneys, anti-Asian stereotypes also impact corporate investment in corporate America. We see it every day. If you look at the statistics, Asian Americans do fairly well or decently represented when it comes being employed at the rank and file of corporate America. So let’s say at the associate level of big law firms, the entry level positions for innovative companies, but when you look at who is in the C-suites, who actually becomes the partner and the senior partner, who becomes the board members, Asian American numbers dropped dramatically. In fact, of the major ethnic categories, you look at the ratio of rank and file to seniority investment, our community actually does the worst, in part because of stereotypes around not exhibiting the qualities that are allegedly looked for when it comes to advancement and promotion. This is why last year I helped to author a bill along with an African American and Latino colleague to push California corporations, to be much more intentional in promoting individuals to boardrooms and corporate boards. But this is also why I challenge large law firms to really look at their ranks, to see if their diversity is reflected, not just at the rank and file, but in their partnership ranks, in their leadership ranks, et cetera. And all of these issues are really intertwined. You may wonder what does the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta have to do with the fact that Asians are still underrepresented at the top of the corporate hierarchy? These issues are deeply linked.

Bonnie Lau: Yeah, I absolutely echo David’s thoughts. And in the vein of what specifically organizations can be doing, I think it’s really important to invite discussion around Asian discrimination in the workplace. David said, and probably much more beautifully than I could, white collar AAPIs are the lead likely demographic to be promoted into leadership. AAPIs also have the highest income inequality of any racial or ethnic group. So I think it’s really important to invite conversation around our hiring practices, promotions practices, pay inequity in the legal profession. And I would also encourage organizations to make sure that they’re inviting speakers who are knowledgeable about the experience of being Asian in America and the ongoing history of activism within the AAPI community to facilitate that discussion in a productive, specific way. And I also think while it’s important to host safe spaces for Asian employees to discuss, I also think that the speaking out is incredibly important. That’s part of making sure that we’re not minimizing or invalidating the Asian experience. And so I think inclusive workplaces have a responsibility to acknowledge what’s going on in terms of Asian violence right now and recognize the racial trauma that employees may be feeling so that they are helping to move that conversation forward.

Natalie Kernisant: Well, I know that we’re coming up on time. I wanted to take a moment to thank you both for this really engaging conversation, for sharing your insights on this very important topic, and more importantly for all the work that you do in this space. Thank you both for joining us today.

Bonnie Lau: Yeah. Thanks so much, Natalie. And thank you David, for your time and for joining us; we really appreciate it.

David Chiu: Thanks for having us.

Natalie Kernisant: Although this podcast focused primarily on California AB557, there has been government action against anti-Asian hate across the country. Federally, President Joe Biden announced on March 30th additional steps his administration would take to respond to the rise in anti-Asian violence, including reinstating and reinvigorating the White House initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, with an initial focus on anti-Asian bias and violence, establishing a COVID-19 Equity Task Force on addressing xenophobia against Asian Americans, and establishing a Department of Justice cross agency initiative to address anti-Asian violence, among other things. Several states have also taken steps to combat anti-Asian hate, including New York, which passed the Hate Crimes Analysis and Review Act to improve the state’s ability to monitor and respond to hate crimes, and the Virginia General Assembly’s formation of the AAPI caucus in the state to work on advancing the interests of the AAPI community. Contact your local state or federal representatives to find out what your community is doing to stand up for civil rights and against anti‑Asian hate.

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