By ANNAKAI HAYAKAWA GESHLIDER, Rafu Contributor
In 2022, the Long Beach-based Filipino Migrant Center surveyed nearly 500 Filipino workers in L.A. County. One out of four workers reported being treated with less respect a few times per month due to their appearance.
Healthcare workers in particular felt targeted; many reported being blamed as “disease carriers” due to their ethnicity and occupation. “Because of wearing scrubs… we’re [seen as] spreading the virus,” said one participant in the survey.
Several older women said they commonly experienced harassment on public transportation. One woman described how when riding public transportation fellow passengers began “chasing me and throwing things at me” after calling her “Asian.” “I was trembling in fear,” she said.
To fight anti-AAPI hate, FMC uses community organizing to build support for survivors. When Nicholas Weber, a white man, physically assaulted a Filipino family outside a McDonald’s drive-through in May 2022, the center started a multiracial solidarity campaign to call for justice for the family.
On May 13, 2022, mother and daughter Nerissa and Patricia Roque visited a McDonald’s in North Hollywood for a late-night snack. While waiting in line they felt their car being rear-ended. They looked out the window to see a Jeep behind them drive out of the line of cars. The driver began shouting. Patricia, then 19, began filming the driver on her phone.
“You’re so Asian!” yelled Weber, the Jeep’s driver, in what seems from the video footage to be a mock Asian accent. And later, “Oh yeah, I wanna kill you!”
“We called the police, but they were slow to respond,” said Patricia Roque in a statement. “So we called my dad to help us.”
Gabriel Roque, 62, came to meet his wife and daughter. When he arrived, Weber physically assaulted both Gabriel and Nerissa. He struck and pushed Gabriel to the ground and strangled Nerissa.
A bystander subdued Weber and stayed with the family until police arrived. Gabriel was taken to the hospital for medical care.
“Because of the assault, my father has a broken rib,” said Patricia Roque, in a video created by the Justice for Roques campaign. “My family and I decided to speak up about the assault because we felt that it’s the right thing to do,” she added. We wanted to set an example and to stand up against hate and violence.”
That day, Weber was given a citation to appear in court and released by the LAPD. He did not show up for his court date a month later.
FMC gathered community members to show up at the family’s long string of court hearings that followed. (During some hearings, the court made the family and community wait five hours before they could be let into the hearing.) FMC held educational circles outside the courthouse to discuss how to stop hate and best help survivors. Having survivors lead the movements for healing is key, said Karen Roxas, campaigns manager at FMC.
Over a year later, on Aug. 18, 2023, a judge decided not to charge Weber with a hate crime — an overwhelming disappointment for the Roque family and their supporters.
“Because of this experience, I can now say that not everyone who enters this court receives justice,” Nerissa Roque said as the community of supporters gathered outside the Van Nuys courthouse after the hearing, in a video. “However, I still haven’t lost hope that someday we will attain the justice we are seeking.”
“We’ve gotten little to no support from any government — from both the U.S. government and also our own government in the Philippines,” said Patrick Roque, eldest son of Nerissa and Gabriel Roque, in an interview.
The family’s application for compensation remains pending with the Los Angeles County Bureau of Victim Services. “We felt really frustrated,” Patrick Roque said.
Attending court hearings for nearly a year and a half was not easy, especially for a working-class family, Patrick Roque added. “My parents go to work six days a week, for 14 hours, to make ends meet. Having to miss multiple days of work to visit the courthouse definitely has a huge impact on how we’re able to sustain ourselves.” As a result, the parents accumulated around $12,000 in lost wages.
Thankfully, an emergency fund set up by FMC helped the family pay for much-needed expenses during the long process of attending court. The FMC and fellow organizations were able to raise $10,000 for the family to use, Patrick Roque said.
Despite the court’s decision to drop the hate crime conviction, the community vowed to keep fighting.
“It is through the community’s efforts and solidarity that we have felt justice from this incident,” said Patrick Roque. “We will continue to organize with the community.” He feels the organizing his family has been doing — to spread the word about their experience and gather people together to support survivors of hate — has strengthened the Filipino community and broader AAPI community as well.
Attempts at education for the perpetrator were made by the court (including required online alcohol abuse and anti-bias training). However, the Roque family feels these are insufficient, Roxas said. “What is really accountability? It’s a weakness of the overall system. What the victims want is not necessarily for these people to rot in prison, but for them to learn that what they’ve done really affects the victims.”
Roxas is looking forward to “other, non-carceral approaches for those who have done harm, and accountability for them.” Many people are afraid to report hate crimes because it requires engagement with law enforcement, she added. “How do we bring about changes in the current justice system?”
“Get organized,” said Patrick Roque. “Raise awareness about the issue. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your immediate community.”
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This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.