In celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month, the NYC Daily Post interviewed Esther Young Lim, founder of the non-profit, Through Peace. She is known for authoring the booklet, “How To Report A Hate Crime” and orchestrating hate crime safety workshops.
“How To Report A Hate Crime” booklet
Lim’s booklet teaches and educates people about hate crimes. Lim told me “it teaches people how to identify hate crimes, educate them on our state laws like California that the penal code, prevention tips and what you do after an attack, and where to get victim services, and especially reinstate the confidence of what they need in why their voice matters and why reporting is necessary.”
California’s Penal Code is a set of laws that impose punishment towards criminal offenses that are based on gender, race, sexual orientation and other offenses.
Lim adds that it is important for hate crime reports to be factually accurate to get the services and resources a particular community may need due to high crime rates. Her motivation for writing the booklet comes from the numerous hate crimes against the Asian community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I saw a lot of women and elderly getting attacked the most [on social media and friends] . . . those [victims] identified as people who looked like my parents . . . so I became worried for their safety,” said Lim.
Lim wrote the booklet in Korean for her parents and published it online. Also, she shared it on social media and with her friends for them to share it with their parents too. The booklet has been translated into 13 different languages throughout the U.S.
In other words, Lim created Through Peace to provide public safety tools for vulnerable communities that need them. Her target audience includes immigrants, marginalized communities and the elderly.
We may allude to the language former President Donald Trump used when he blamed the Asian community for bringing the coronavirus to the U.S., calling it the “Chinese virus” or the “kung flu.”
“We’ve been a marginalized community for a long time . . . our nation has a very long history of discrimination. Marginalized groups are called marginalized groups because people put us in that so now my whole thing is holistic community preservation. It’s important for people to come together and understand that we have shared experiences no matter what ethnic, cultural background we come from.”
Lim says this is why she has had the booklet translated in different languages such as Spanish and Albanian so we can all experience being victimized in a hate crime incident.
She has distributed over 160,000 booklets nationwide.
Hate crime safety workshops
The hate crime safety workshops provide private one-on-one consultations with the DA’s victim services bureau in California cities including San Diego, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Mental health consultations are provided too.
“With those consultations, it literally tears me apart [emotionally and mentally] because people are desperate for help,” said Lim.
The workshops provide the following:
- Medical reimbursement
- Free mental health counseling
- Relocation fees
- Job retraining programs
How do you report a hate crime? You do it by filing a police report. Lim explained how this is problematic because of how many people don’t have much trust in the police anymore so they don’t report a hate crime.
Because people don’t report hate crimes, local and state governments won’t invest money in organizations that can help with the presence of hate crimes.
“Most states’ hate crime laws have changed where officers take hate incidents and hate crime reports . . . Incident reports are more like verbal assaults . . . where criminals are more like physical attacks or property damage,” said Lim. Police officers have to physically go to the area and make an incident report. These laws went into effect last year, according to Lim.
The workshops include sessions where the people go over the booklet and police officials come in to talk with them too, she told me.
Los Angeles County District Attorney AAPI Advisory Board
Lim collaborates with the office to create hate crime workshops in the community concerning elderly abuse and fraud. “It’s really great, the district attorney’s office is very open to listening and hearing us out,” she commented.
Lim says the public doesn’t have much trust in district attorney offices in general due to their tendency to be light on punishment because of improper evidence.
The board serves as a liaison for the public to the office. For example, an 18-year-old stabbed an elderly Asian man as he was waiting for his granddaughter at school. The perpetrator also stabbed a USC student to the publics’ outrage. Lim spoke to the family to explain the situation and reassure them the steps the office is taking to ensure justice for the victims.
Conclusion
Esther Young Lim wants to help change lives because it fulfills her. “The booklet demand was rising . . . So I was going to do a nonprofit. I am going to help change lives and help protect it, preserve it so that’s why I created my nonprofit. . . . I realize if I don’t do this, I’d regret it.”
She says Martin Luther King Jr. inspired her to believe in peace and the tool she believes will help with her goal is education.
I commend her work and admire her motivation to want to make an impact for her own community and in the world. She is a role model to the youth and plays a crucial role in the history of the Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Editor’s note: The spelling of Ms. Lim’s name has been corrected.
Featured image: Photo by Kareem Hayes on Unsplash
Edited by: James Sutton
