For Asian American women, racism and sexism are two things experienced at the same time.
Last week's shooting rampage at three spas in Georgia underscored that when eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent, were killed.
Law enforcement immediately took the alleged shooter's words as fact stating his motive was sex addiction and had nothing to do with race.
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But many people in the Asian American Pacific Islander community say racism and sexism have a long, interconnected history in this country stemming back to the 1875 Page Act.
"It was a U.S. federal law that was directed at barring Asian women in general and Chinese women in particular from entering the United States under the assumption that they were sex workers or apt to become sex workers," said Christen Sasaki, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. "This (sexism and racism) is not new at all. It's been going on for centuries."
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Sasaki joined Midday Edition to talk about how Asian American women experience racialized sexism in America and the challenges they face advocating for social justice.
