South Carolina is one of the five states in this country that does not have hate crime laws.

In the fall of 2004, Chai Soua Vang was deer hunting in the woods in northern Wisconsin. They were in a region that was a mix of public and private lands. Vang, along with two friends had started the say in public lands, but later went onto a tract of private lands. On this private land that day, there was about 15 people staying in a cabin. Terry Willers, a co-owner of the land, had left the cabin and saw Vang on a deer stand. He then radioed back to the cabin to inquire whether anybody should be in the deer stand. When Willers received confirmation in the negative, he asked Vang to leave. Vang then proceeded to walk away after asking for directions. It was at this point that some of the people at the cabin who had heard the message arrived on ATVs. After this, the events are disputed. The confrontation turned violent and resulted in Vang firing 20 rounds, resulting in 6 dead and 2 wounded. According to Vang's testimony, racial slurs were directed at him during the verbal dispute such as "chink" and "gook", and Willers had fired the first shot at him from about 100 feet away. No shell casing was ever recovered from Willers' gun even through one of the survivors testified that a shot had been fired after the shooting began. Vang was convicted by an all white jury and effectively sentenced to life without parole in 2005.

There are many facts about the case that are questionable and this is certainly not a black and white case of racial injustice. After all, Vang had shot 2 of the victims in the back and he was a trained marksmen. The facts of the case make self defense a stretch.

I have no idea what happened that day in 2004 with Chai Vang and the other hunters. I also, in many ways, feel that this is not my story to tell, for I am not Hmong, and the history of racism that the Hmong community has faced in Wisconsin and other midwestern states is not my history. And because I am East Asian, I sometimes reap benefits in areas where they are often marginalized.

But, on the stand, Vang testified that he had feared for his life when one of the hunters' shot nearly hit him. And it is this sentiment that stood out to me. Because it is this sentiment that I can fully relate to. While Vang's testimony seemed full of holes to the jury, it seemed entirely plausible to me.


I remember once being asked by a white UW professor during an interview for a fellowship what it means to be Asian American when it is a collection of people from such different cultures and backgrounds. I didn't have a very good answer for him at the time because I hadn't expected to be questioned about my identity in that way. And in some ways he's right. Our cultures can be vastly different, but he missed the point entirely for I wasn't talking about an Asian identity, but an Asian American identity. And in that emphasis, where we are common is the way our American society views and treats us. The hunters that Vang encountered didn't give a damn that Vang wasn't Chinese or Korean. They still called him a "chink" and a "gook." And where we are common is the fear and terror that our lives are worth less than a white man's in this country.

I can imagine being confronted by a white hunter about being somewhere I shouldn't have been, turning around to leave when a group of his friends show up. I can imagine the instant terror when racial slurs start flying around. Nobody has to draw a gun and I would still fear for my life in that moment. I would assess how I was one person looking at a group of white people openly hostile toward me because of my race, and I would know that I was not safe. And suppose one of them fires a shot. I fully understand Vang's fear in that moment and his decision to shoot the hunters. Even in the back. Because I had encountered one and more of them show up openly hostile. And when the crime is racially motivated, discussions of whether they still posed a threat no longer make any sense because the mere fact of my race was reason enough for them to start shooting. Following the events of that day in 2004, bumper stickers cropped up around Wisconsin that said, "Save a Hunter. Shoot a Hmong." They don't ever stop being a threat.

Forty-five states in this country have statutes that criminalize various types of bias-motivated violence or intimidation. In California, a hate crime can carry with it a harsher sentence. I have heard arguments against hate crime laws. Why does the motivation of the perpetrator matter in the sentencing if the crime is the same. In some ways, all perpetrators carry some hate for their victims. All human beings should be protected, they argue. But as Jon Stewart so eloquently pointed out, hate crimes are not just run of the mill crimes. They are acts of terrorism. They are acts of terrorism against women, against black people, against the LGBTQ community. They are senseless and without reason and motivated by nothing else except for the perpetrator's hatred of their victims' existence. The same terror that some Americans feel about "the tyranny of Islam in America" that lead them to hold rallies with guns outside of mosques is the same terror that I imagine Vang would've felt when 8 white hunters with guns began directing racial slurs at him.

What justice we demanded when acts of terrorism happen against white America! If we expect a harsher sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber instead of just the number of lives taken, if we demand harsher sentences for bin Laden, why shouldn't the perpetrators of hate crimes also receive the same harsher punishment?

South Carolina is one of the five states in this country that does not have hate crime laws.