Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen talked about the history of anti-Asian violence in the U.S. on Late Night With Seth Meyers Thursday.
Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer and The Committed, addressed the issue in the wake of the mass shootings in Atlanta earlier this month, in which six women of Asian descent were slain. Police arrested a White man in connection with the killings.
“This is an all-American tragedy,” Nguyen said. “Mass shootings, it only happens in this country. We’ve had anti-Asian violence in this country for as long as we’ve had Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in this country.”
Nguyen referenced one of the worst racial massacres in American history, which occurred in the Old Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles.
“I’m coming from Los Angeles talking to you; here in 1871, 19 Chinese men were massacred by a mob of several hundred, and that was not an isolated incident,” he said. “And we’ve seen that happening repeatedly throughout American history. I could take up your entire show talking to you about all the many, many kinds of incidents.”
Nguyen also discussed a more recent tragedy: the Cleveland Elementary School shooting, which shocked the world 32 years ago.
“In 1989, the worst schoolyard shooting before Columbine took place in Stockton, California, when a White gunman killed five children, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees,” Nguyen said. “They fled from Cambodia and Vietnam from a war, came to this country, and were killed in a schoolyard.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
