By Ashfaque Swapan

Special to India-West

South Asian American community groups have been joined by a host of other civil rights groups to express alarm and outrage after news that a San Francisco, Calif.-based Indian American, whose identity has not been disclosed, had been the victim of a violent racial assault during a trip to Lake Tahoe.

"Hate crimes against any individual of any community are absolutely deplorable and when they happen, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law so the message gets out that this type of incident is not acceptable in our communities," Shirin Sinnar, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, told India-West.

A married couple was arraigned Aug. 22 and charged with hate crimes. Joseph Frank Silva, 53, and his wife, 49-year-old Georgia Ruth Silva, were charged in El Dorado County Superior Court with misdemeanor hate crime charges after the July 14 attack left the victim with broken bones in his face. Both pleaded not guilty. Joseph Silva also pleaded not guilty to a charge of felony assault.

"I've been involved in hate crimes issues since before 9/11," Harmeet K. Dhillon, who chairs the civil rights committee of the South Asian Bar Association, told India-West. "I guess my first reaction to this incident was deep disappointment and sadness that so many years after 9/11, which really triggered this wave of hate crimes against South Asians in this country and northern California, these types of incidents are still happening and, if anything, they seem to be accelerating in terms of their number and level of violence."

The recent attack follows last month's fatal hate crime against another South Asian man in the Sacramento area. On July 1, Satendar Singh, a 25-year-old Sikh man of Fiji Indian descent, was attacked at Lake Natoma, east of Sacramento, by a group shouting racist and homophobic slurs. As a result of a massive head injury from the beating, he fell into a coma and died several days later. On Aug. 12, the Islamic Center of the East Bay in Antioch, Calif., was set ablaze in an attack that is being investigated as an act of arson and that community members fear was motivated by anti-Muslim bias.

According to a SABA press release, witnesses said that on the evening of July 14, the victim, a financial services executive in his mid-30s who is a U.S. citizen, was visiting Lake Tahoe with his fiancee and her cousin, also Indian Americans. As the two women walked along the beach, one of the Silvas called them "Indian sluts and whores." Upon inquiry by the victim, the Silvas responded with a volley of racial slurs, including the terms "Indian garbage," "terrorists," and "relatives of Osama bin Laden."

As the victim's group walked away, the Silvas followed them, continuing their verbal assault. The Silvas then attacked him, knocking him to the ground and kicking his face, while continuing their racist slurs. The victim suffered serious injuries, including facial fractures.

During this time, the Silvas also assaulted an elderly Indian American couple, throwing a cup of sand at them and hurling racial epithets. The victim managed to call 911 and the Silvas were arrested at the scene of the crime as their victim was treated by emergency medical personnel and taken to a hospital.

"He suffered multiple bone fractures in the face from someone who beat him and also yelled anti-Indian slurs at him," Edwin Prather, an attorney who has previously worked on cases of anti-Asian violence and is representing the victim pro bono, told India-West.

"It's a traumatic and life-altering experience."

A preliminary hearing date has been set for Sept. 3. The hearing will determine if there is probable cause to hold the defendants to the charges. If convicted, the wife faces up to a year in county jail, while the husband faces several years.

SABA civil rights chair Dhillon said the community needed a more pro-active, robust attitude towards hate crimes.

"People in the Indian American community tend to be rather passive...As a result of that, we are singled out as passive people and victims and I think one way to combat that is...like the victim in this case, (to) stand up and demand that the crime be prosecuted appropriately as a hate crime," she said. "I think a lot of these types of incidents go on and they are not reported. People are ashamed, people are afraid, people don't want to bring attention to themselves. I think that's absolutely the wrong approach."

Dhillon said that people had a civic duty to speak out. "One of the reasons why we issued this press release on behalf of the South Asian Bar Association was to let people out there know that anytime somebody commits a crime, whether it's vandalizing a car, or beating you or interfering with your civil rights in any way, it's a serious matter that one should take care of, not only with respect to one's own life, but also in respect to the larger South Asian community," she emphasized to India-West.

Prather, the victim's attorney, said it "absolutely makes a difference" when the community gets involved. "When prosecutors know that they get support for the work that they are doing, I think it makes them more likely to seek out those types of charges again (in future)," he said. "I also think that it helps identify these kinds of issues for the community so that other victims aren't afraid to step forward. They don't feel so alone."

Prather also added that people who believed racism or hate crimes exist only in certain pockets of the U.S. were wrong.

"I've just been privy to so many things after 9/11 that I don't think any region of the United States is immune from this kind of hatred," he said. "It boils under the surface and once in a while it just comes out and it does really surprise you. That's why it's so important for the media to speak out against it, and continue to educate others that it happens."

by indiawest