Condemnation of Attacks on People of Asian Ancestry

We at ASSERT condem categorically the terrible and unthinkable violence against our brothers and sisters of Asian ancestry. We must confront the rising tide of hatred and violence against people of Asian descent. This is a global problem that has existed prior to the pandemic, and has only been exascebated over the past year. Anti-Asian discrimanation is on the rise across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and indeed even within parts of Asia itself. 

We would like to remind readers that people of Asian descent are an integral part of the fabric many societies worldwide; indeed too many to enumerate. But for two countries built upon the backs of slaves and immigrants, people of Asian ancestry have more than earned their rightful place as full members of Canadian and American society. 

The first Asians to arrive on Canadian shores did so in 1788, nearly 100 years before Confederation. In the the United States, the first arrivals date to c.1815. My earliest ancestors from Ireland and Sweden would not arrive in Canada and the United States for the better part of a century. Likewise, the ancestors of the tens of millions of North Americans who claim Irish, Italian, Scandanavian, and German origins arrived after the first, and concurrent with the second, wave of Asian immigration to Canada and the United States. 

People of Asian ancestry have been brutalized and excluded for generations. They are our American and Canadian brethren. They belong. They have more than earned their right to be here. They deserve to be treated with the dignity and humanity. As discrimination, hatred, and violence rise against our own people, we are all weakened, we are all worse off, and we cannot, must not, brook such intolerance. 

We at ASSERT are here to do what little we can to teach, to remind, and to demand justice for our brothers and sisters of Asian Ancestry. We ask you to remind others in your orbit to do the same.

Sincerely, 

Cory Wright-Maley, Founding Editor of ASSERT