Racism and Its Implications for Filipinos

By: Janice Dantes

 

No matter your political leanings or personal feelings about the situation involving George Floyd, the vast majority Filipinos can agree that it put the issue of racism in America to the forefront of our minds. The issue of racism is not limited to African Americans and White Americans. Most recently with COVID-19, many Asian Americans were unfortunately targeted for racist comments and unfairly scapegoated. The purpose of this article is not to spark a debate but to educate our community about what to do if we encounter racism. Below are some basic information we should all know.

1. What is a hate crime? According to ILCS 5/12-7.1, “A person commits hate crime when, by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, regardless of the existence of any other motivating factor or factors, he or she commits assault, battery, aggravated assault, intimidation, stalking, cyberstalking, misdemeanor theft, criminal trespass to residence, misdemeanor criminal damage to property, criminal trespass to vehicle, criminal trespass to real property, mob action, disorderly conduct, transmission of obscene messages, harassment by telephone, or harassment…” To illustrate, it is both a murder and a hate crime if you kill someone and it is motivated by that individual’s race. A hate crime is a felony and if you are found guilty of a hate crime, you can face time in jail.

2. I am being treated poorly at work, can I sue? Employment discrimination cases are incredibly difficult. It is not illegal for your employer to be a jerk. However, they cannot treat you worse than a similarly situated person if you are part of a protected class (e.g. race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc.). What makes these cases difficult is that employees who are not in a union or signed an employment contract are generally “at-will” employees. This means that you can be fired for no reason. When this happens, you have to provide clear and convincing evidence that your firing was on a basis of race and not performance issues (e.g. being consistently tardy, not performing your assigned duties, etc.)

3. I was told to go back to China because I brought COVID-19. I was not injured. Is there anything I can do about this? Just because it is not a crime or worth suing over, it does not mean you should not do anything. As an initiative with the Asian American Bar Association, the Filipino American Bar Association is encouraging our community to report these experiences. You can report these instances to Asian American Advancing Justice https://www. standagainsthatred.org/report. If it rises to the level of harassment, you can report it to your local police.

4. What else can I do to combat racism? There are many ways you can combat racism. First, Filipinos need to be counted. Please complete the Census and vote in your next election. You can support a variety of causes including Asian American Advancing Justice and other organizations working toward changing policies to be more diverse and inclusive. Lastly, I think we need to encourage Asian Americans and Filipinos to run for office and other prominent positions. Filipinos do not hold office in the City of Chicago and we only have a handful of Filipino judges. If we want to make changes, we need to be positions of authority to do so.

On a personal note, I am fortunate to come from a family of police officers and have come to know a number of good police officers. I support police officers who are doing their jobs. I have been fortunate to have had few racial barriers impacting my success. However, this does not mean that there are not bad police officers out there or that racism does not exist. We can all do our part to make this world a better place. I also hope that we as a Filipino community can do more to advocate for ourselves when we are facing unjust treatment.

If you have any legal questions, please contact me at (312) 546-5077 or janice@pinaylaw.com.

Thank you for reading. Until we meet again, love one another.