Last May, Thai-American actor James Tang tweeted, “My mom said we should speak Thai in public so we don’t get targeted for speaking Mandarin.”
Oh, such motherly innocence!
“I think it’s so sweet that she’s nice enough to believe that these stupid f***king racists can differentiate between Asian languages,” Tang added.
A year later, however, and the tweet is even more unsettling than before. It was the death of a Thai man earlier this year, after all, which helped highlight the rise in Asian-American hate crimes. Vicha Ratanapakdee was walking in San Francisco when he was violently shoved to the ground — a fatal attack that his family believes was racially motivated.
Ken Mathis Lohatepanont 
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