Cortez Masto meets with local AAPI community; talks hate bill

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Some of the leaders of the Las Vegas Asian American/Pacific Islander community sat around a table at the Service Employees International Union offices off Rancho Wednesday morning. They’re here for a dialogue with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, about the hate the AAPI community has been experiencing in the wake of COVID-19: "the China virus," as some call it, because of its origin.

At the end of this table sits Gloria Caoile, the president of the Asian Pacific America Labor Alliance. Later, outside, I ask her, “are you seeing things get better, are they staying the same, are they getting worse,” referring to the climate her community is facing.

“Things are getting better in that there is really an outpouring of community support,” she told me.

You met Caoile before, on March 18th, the day after the horrible killings in Atlanta that took eight lives, six of whom were of Asian descent. She joined representatives of the local Asian community in our Chinatown, along with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, to say hate is not welcome here.

“I am also afraid really for my grandchild that - how long is this going to go on,” she asked that day.

The Senator says the bill would help fix that, requiring the collection of data to see just how bad this hate-against-Asian problem is. It also funnels resources to local law enforcement to fight back.

“We're gonna force and hold people accountable for any hate crimes and we're identifying it. But we're gonna collect the data and see the depth and scope of it,” says Cortez Masto.

What Cortez Masto heard today is hate against Asians is taking many forms, from verbal, to online bullying.

Sanje Sedera, the CEO of Integrative Medicine, was at the roundtable. I asked him what the local AAPI community needs from Washington.

“We need more resources put into a program like this to be implemented, definitely,” he says.

Which, according to all here, needs to come, soon.