The protesters marched from the upscale neighborhood of Washington Heights down to the site in East Harlem where an elderly man was brutally beaten on Friday night amid a surge in violence against Asian Americans.
"I wanted to say that there is an increase in this town of anti-Asian violence of 1,900 percent. There is an increase in America but in this city in particular of anti-Asian violence of 1,900 percent," said activist Johanna Fernandez, citing numbers released by the NYPD that states that anti-Asian hate crime has soared in the city last year.
The march was called in response to several recent acts of violence towards AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islander) community in the USA, including the attack on a 61-year-old Asian man, who was kicked in the head multiple times in the middle of a Harlem street and is now in a medically induced coma, according to reports.
