Milpitas police investigating defaced election signs as hate crime

Two Asian-American candidates in Milpitas have become targets of hate crimes and have had their political signs defaced.

Milpitas City Council candidate Bill Chuan and Councilmember Hon Lien, who is running for the mayoral seat, had their campaign banners defaced with anti-Asian language. “NO ASIANS” was spray-painted over Chuan’s banner on Barber Lane. Alongside it, “NO NO” was painted over Lien’s banner.

“I am really sick of having people attack others (based on) their ethnicity and their race,” Lien told San José Spotlight. “This land is the land of opportunity to everyone, not just one group or another.”

Voters elected Lien to serve on the Milpitas City Council in 2022. Born in South Vietnam, she and her family fled the country during the Vietnam War and stayed in a refugee camp in Malaysia before relocating to the U.S.

Lien has served as a trustee on the Milpitas Unified School District board and on the Milpitas Planning Commission, but said this is her first time experiencing anti-Asian hate in an election. The incident has not only caused her to feel angry, but also uneasy.

“Because I don’t know how far people would take it, so I’m very careful of my surroundings,” Lien said.

Chuan, who has also served on the city planning commission, said the defacement didn’t instill any fear — instead he felt an urgency to stop discriminatory acts.

“When I saw the anti-Asian graffiti, I was shocked and disturbed,” Chuan told San José Spotlight. “ I couldn’t believe what I saw, especially in a diverse city as Milpitas. In my earlier days, I have experienced anti-Asian hate, but not like this recent incident.”

The Milpitas Police Department is investigating the incidents as hate crimes. Lt. Tyler Jamison said these are one-off incidents and there hasn’t been a pattern of racist graffiti in the city.

“We take incidents like this very seriously, as they do not reflect the values of our diverse and inclusive community,” Jamison told San José Spotlight. “Over the past five years, there has only been one other reported incident of graffiti with hate-based rhetoric in Milpitas. That incident was not similar to this.”

With a population of 80,000 people, nearly 75% of Milpitas residents are of Asian descent — 57,500 people. Latinos are the next most populous group at 10,500 residents, according to 2020 U.S. Census data.

Anti-Asian hate became widespread when the pandemic hit as more people reported attacks and feared harassment. California had the most reported incidents compared to other states, according to Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center. From 2020 to 2023, the nonprofit received 4,320 reports in California of anti-Asian hate acts ranging from physical injury, harassment, property damage and more. The state with the second highest number of occurrences, New York, had half as many incidents.

The Bay Area had some of the highest numbers of anti-Asian hate incidents, with Santa Clara County logging 328 incidents and San Francisco racking up 946 occurrences from 2020 to 2023.

“(Anti-Asian hate) is as prevalent as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, told San José Spotlight. “According to our latest report, we found that nearly half — 49% — of all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. have recently experienced racism or discrimination in the form of an act of hate as a direct result of their race, ethnicity or nationality.”

But San Jose State University Sociology Professor Hien Do said anti-Asian hate in America started long before COVID-19.

“California has been home to the most severe discriminatory laws against Asian Americans,” Do told San José Spotlight. “The 1882 (Chinese) Exclusion Act began in California, the internment of Japanese Americans also was in California. So it’s not like we’re immune to it.”
In regards to the most recent attacks on Asians, Do said it’s psychologically damaging for the community and signals to Asians that they shouldn’t speak out.

“There was a professor … who talked about this idea of the forever foreigner, that no matter how many generations we’ve been here, that it still feels as if we are seen and not part of America,” Do said. “That perpetuates that notion when they think of Asian Americans, that they think of us as being … these invaders of their society.”

To lessen anti-Asian hate crimes, Do said the strategy is two-fold: It begins with continuing to collect more data to show how pervasive the issue is, and also requires educating communities on the issue.

“People think that (because) we are the model minority, that these things don’t happen to us,” he said. “It is very important for people to make sure that they are able to work together and to build bridges between and amongst communities so that we can eradicate this problem.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.