Sacramento doctors raise money for India COVID relief + Saying goodbye: Your AAPI newsletter

It is Thursday, May 13, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.

Here’s a recap of the stories I’ve covered and ones I’m following:

Sacramento-based doctors of Indian descent are raising money to send oxygen to India as a sudden spike in COVID-19 rates has led to thousands of deaths daily and overwhelmed medical facilities there.

“You see the difference between the two health-care systems (of the U.S. and India) … Then you hear (about) people who are dying on the street because they can’t even get into the hospital,” said Dr. Manoj Mittal, an ICU physician at Sutter General Hospital. “How do you even comprehend that?”

Mittal is a board member of United Visions International, the Sacramento organization that’s trying to get more oxygen to people in India. The goal is to raise $255,000 to purchase 300 oxygen concentrators — devices that extract oxygen from the air to send a limitless supply through ventilators. As of Wednesday, the group has raised more than $84,000.

India has suffered a major surge in COVID infections since March after seeing a decline last winter. An estimated 4,187 people died Saturday, the country’s highest daily death rate yet, bringing the estimated total number of deaths to nearly 240,000.

UVI co-founder Dr. Prabjit Singh also added that, given how quickly new COVID variants can spread, protecting Americans in the U.S. requires protecting people elsewhere. Supporting India’s residents means supporting a global community, UVI’s physicians said, and urged Sacramentans to contribute to relief efforts in any way possible.

“At this point, we want to save lives as soon as possible,” Singh said. “We want to get (oxygen) to our people as soon as possible. The need may change 30 days from now, but right now, this is the need.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the launch of a new racial justice bureau among other initiatives to tackle hate crimes statewide in a press conference Tuesday morning.

The new California Department of Justice bureau plans to bring in six new attorneys as well as a supervising deputy attorney general. The bureau will assist community organizations fighting hate and work with law enforcement to identify best practices for investigating hate crimes.

“Taking on hate crimes will always be one of my top priorities as the people’s attorney,” Bonta said. “No part of California is immune to hate.”

On a regional level, the bureau will hold a virtual meeting with the mayors of California’s major cities later this month. Bonta also suggested pushing out best practices advice for local law enforcement through state department bulletins, as well as working with community organizations to provide culturally competent, in-language support to improve hate crime reporting.

In addition to its legal duties, the bureau will be asked to focus on assisting the new state task force to develop reparations for Black Californians.

The bureau will also launch investigations into police conduct as needed, Bonta said.

Bonta, who was approved by state lawmakers in April, is the first Filipino American to hold the position. Gov. Gavin Newsom turned to Bonta after weeks of lobbying from advocates after the Atlanta mass shooting that left six dead, four of whom were of Asian descent.

In other news

• ‘We were scared’: Asian-owned small businesses devastated by double whammy of Covid and hate crime (CNBC)
• Fallen Stockton police Officer Jimmy Inn: ‘A Cambodian-American role model’ (The Record, Stockton)
• The bloody history of anti-Asian violence in the West (National Geographic)
• Man accused of stabbing 2 Asian women in S.F. pleads not guilty (San Francisco Chronicle)
• How Asians Became the Most Vaccinated Group in New York City (The New York Times)
• The Lure of H Mart, Where the Shelves Can Seem as Wide as Asia (The New York Times)
• What Native Hawaiians Want You to Know Before a Trip to Hawaii (Teen Vogue)
• How AAJA helped shape coverage of the Atlanta shootings (Poynter)
• Chinese American Museum of Chicago Kicks Off New Exhibit on History of Chinese Fine Dining (NBC Chicago)

• L.A. Times Podcast ‘Asian Enough’ Premieres Second Season (Los Angeles Times)

• (Opinion) Asked in a poll to name a prominent Asian American, the top answer was ‘don’t know.’ Wake up, America (The Boston Globe)

This week in AAPI pop culture

If you’re looking for some weighty television to sink your teeth into this week, Crossings TV (KBTV 8.1) is hosting a series of weekly documentaries for AAPI Heritage Month celebrating Asian American history and the community’s contributions to the country.

Each documentary will explore Asian American culture, identity and experiences from various communities such as Chinese, Japanese, Sikh, Filipino and mixed-race perspectives. Many of the documentaries, produced by PBS, will also focus on the growth of the AAPI community in Northern California and the Central Valley.

Documentaries will premiere every Thursday starting at 5 p.m., with reruns on Saturdays and Sundays.

Some of the titles in the lineup include “Little Manila,” about Filipino American history in Stockton, “Forsaken Fields,” about the impact of incarceration on Japanese American farming and “Finding Cleveland,” about a Chinese American family from the Midwest that sets out to track down their lineage.

To see a full list of upcoming programming for Crossings TV in Sacramento, click here.

Thank you!

And now for something a little more personal: My last day at The Sacramento Bee is Friday. I’ll be joining The New York Times as a metro reporter in June.

It seems like just yesterday that I touched base in Sacramento in the middle of a curfew, ongoing protests and the height of a pandemic. How different Sacramento is today compared to last summer, and how time flies.

It’s been an enormous privilege to help amplify the stories of Sacramento’s Asian American and Pacific Islander communities this past year. I’m eternally grateful to everyone who was brave and generous enough to share their perspectives, their concerns, their criticism and the issues they care about.

I’ve covered everything from the disproportionately high rates of COVID deaths for Pacific Islanders and survivors of the U.S. bombs on Hiroshima to Jewish traditions of Chinese takeout on Christmas and food bloggers who went viral. I’ve covered dozens of protests, painful spikes in anti-Asian discrimination and calls to educate our students on California’s deep Asian American history.

I’ve even taken detours from the beat, reporting on subjects like where Bachelorette Clare Crawley should have taken her boyfriend(s) for a date in her hometown and whether Sacramento is really the Midwest of California.

None of this would have been possible without all the support and guidance from Sacramento’s AAPI community. Thank you for giving me the chance to tell your stories. I hope that I was able to do your experience a little justice, to make some sort of progress towards feeling heard and represented by The Bee’s coverage.

Thank you, thank you. Take care of yourself, and stay safe out there!