Asian American Widow Received Racist Letter Sent on Day of Husband's Funeral: 'Pack Your Bags'
On the day that Claudia Choi buried her father, Byong, her mother was sent a threatening and racist letter that told the grieving widow to "Pack your bags."
The letter came from an unknown resident in Leisure World, the Seal Beach, California retirement community where Choi's mother and father lived.
"Now that Byong is gone makes it one less Asian to put up with in Leisure World," the handwritten letter said. "You f*cking Asians are taking over our American community! It is not resting well with all and everybody who lives here—true statement!!! Watch out! Pack your bags and go back to your country where you belong!"
Angered by the letter, Choi, a resident of Echo Park, Los Angeles, shared it with KCAL-TV.
"To target a grieving widow, it's disgusting," Choi said. "They postmarked it on the day of my father's funeral. How cruel could you be? Shame on them."
She shared the letter because, she said "Racism and hatred and cruelty needs to be denounced at every turn." She added that people need to speak up whenever they witness an instance of anti-Asian discrimination, even if it's passed off as a joke.
"That is not okay," she said, "because these little things that we allow to pass lead to bigger things."
The letter arrived last Friday, three days after a shooter in Atlanta, Georgia murdered Asian massage parlor workers. The letter also arrived at a time when anti-Asian-American hate crimes have spiked across the nation.
Over 3,800 attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) occurred in 2020, according to the watchdog group Stop AAPI Hate. The group also said that 360 attacks against AAPI people happened in Los Angeles alone over the last year.
Democratic New York Representative Grace Meng and other anti-violence activists have blamed the pandemic-related anti-Chinese rhetoric of former President Donald Trump for the recent increase in violence.
"Enough of the demeaning usages of 'Chinese virus,' 'Wuhan virus,' and 'Kung-flu,' especially from our nation's leaders, such as President Trump, GOP leader [Kevin] McCarthy and others," Meng said in September 2020, noting the rise in anti-Asian-American hate crimes.
"Enough of the scapegoating," she added. "Enough of using the Asian-American community to stoke people's fears about COVID-19."
In 2020, 122 incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes occurred in 16 of the nation's most populous cities—a nearly 150 percent increase over 2019, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, VOA reported.
Newsweek contacted Golden Rain Foundation, the managing agent and the trustee of Leisure World, for comment.
