在参议院准备本周审议她的反亚洲仇恨犯罪法案之际，夏威夷参议员马齐·广野(Mazie Hirono)周一表示，该法案代表着立法者对日益增多的反亚洲攻击采取“立场”的机会。
Hirono告诉美国广播公司《观点》的主持人:“在亚裔美国人和太平洋岛民社区感到被围困和脆弱的时候，这是一项至少使参议院能够采取立场的法案，我知道众议院也是如此，并表示这种针对亚裔美国人的无端攻击是完全不可接受的。”
在反亚洲犯罪激增之后，身为日裔美国人的广野一直在与伊利诺伊州民主党参议员谭美·达克沃斯一起领导参议院通过立法。
多数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)周一上午在纽约举行的一次新会议上宣布，参议院将于周三对该法案进行最后一次投票。在上周的程序性投票中，该法案获得了两党议员的一致通过。
“我敢说任何参议员都会投反对票，”舒默说。“如果他们这样做了，他们就可耻了。”
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参议员马齐·广野出现在2021年4月19日的《观点》上。
尽管在平分秋色的参议院中经常出现激烈的党派之争，Hirono上月在亚特兰大地区的几个温泉浴场枪杀了包括6名亚洲妇女在内的8人后提出的温和提议预计将获得一些共和党人的支持。
甚至在枪击事件之前，反亚洲的目标和犯罪在过去一年里就有所上升。
不定冠词分析加州州立大学圣贝纳迪诺分校仇恨和极端主义研究中心3月发布的报告发现，在他们调查的16个城市中，针对亚裔美国人的仇恨犯罪上升了149%。
广野的法案将在司法部指派一名联络人，以加快对与新冠肺炎相关的仇恨犯罪的审查，为执法机构应对仇恨犯罪提供支持，并旨在与地方和州合作伙伴协调，遏制用于描述新冠肺炎疫情的歧视性语言。
“这是一个非常简单的法案，”广野在美国广播公司的《观点》节目中说“它所做的只是要求司法部任命一些人来审查这些罪行，并与州和地方执法部门以及社区倡导者合作来报告这些罪行，因为这些罪行报告得很少。”
尽管该法案得到了两党的支持，但共和党人表示，他们希望看到一些变化，包括对语言的调整，目前需要仇恨言论或行动才能与大流行联系起来，才能在该法案下获得资格。许多议员担心，执法部门证明这种联系可能会很麻烦。
广野表示，她对这一变化持开放态度，但她和其他参议院民主党人也希望强调，他们认为反亚洲情绪的上升与前总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)关于新冠肺炎疫情的言论之间存在明显联系。
特朗普将病毒归咎于中国，并将其称为“功夫流感”，广野曾表示，这引发了亚洲人的仇恨。
舒默周一上午表示，在本周关于该法案的辩论中，将考虑两项两党修正案。目前还不清楚是否会考虑其他。
广野说，随着针对她所在社区的犯罪活动不断增加，她个人经历了越来越多的恐惧。
“这当然让我暂停，”广野说。“我过去常常戴着耳机四处听录音带，现在我不再这样做了，我需要非常注意周围的环境。
广野在她的新书《火之心:移民女儿的故事》中详细描述了她作为日裔美国移民的许多经历，该书将于周二发行。
她童年的经历告诉她立法，包括反AAPI法案和移民改革。
当广野移民到夏威夷她的母亲和哥哥，她的弟弟不得不留在日本。她说她哥哥经历的创伤影响了她的政治。她一直直言不讳地倡导移民美国的家庭，并坚决反对特朗普政府实施的家庭分离政策。
广野说:“当特朗普开始让成千上万的孩子与他们的父母分离时，我知道我们给这些孩子和他们的家人带来了什么样的创伤，我直言不讳。”“我们现在的政府希望有一个人道的移民政策，这需要时间，因为特朗普政府留下的是一个不人道的移民政策，让我们的政策支离破碎。”
Hirono: Anti-Asian hate bill chance for Senate to 'take a stand'
As the Senate prepares to take up her anti-Asian hate crime bill this week, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said Monday the bill represents a chance for lawmakers to "take a stand" against rising anti-Asian attacks.
"At a time when the Asian America Pacific Islander community feels under siege and vulnerable, this is a bill that enables the Senate at least, and I know followed by the House, to take a stand and say these kinds of unprovoked attacks targeting Asian Americans are totally unacceptable," Hirono told the hosts of ABC's "The View."
Hirono, who is Japanese American, has been leading the Senate effort with Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth to pass legislation following a surge in anti-Asian crimes.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a new conference in New York Monday morning that the Senate will take a final vote on the legislation on Wednesday. The bill received an overwhelming green light from members of both parties in a procedural vote last week.
"I dare any Senator to vote against it," Schumer said. "If they do, shame on them."
Despite often-bitter partisanship in the evenly divided Senate, Hirono's modest proposal, introduced on the heels of the shooting of eight people, including six Asian women, at several spas in the Atlanta area last month, is expected to garner some Republican support.
Even before the shooting, there has been a rise in anti-Asian targeting and crimes over the last year.
Ananalysisreleased by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino in March found that there was a 149% rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans over the 16 cities they surveyed.
Hirono's bill would assign a point person at the Department of Justice to expedite the review of COVID-19-related hate crimes, provide support for law enforcement agencies to respond to hate crimes, and aims to coordinate with local and state partners to curb discriminatory language used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This is a really simple bill," Hirono said on ABC's "The View." "All it does is it asks the Department of Justice to appoint somebody to review these crimes and to work with state and local law enforcement and community advocates to report these crimes because they are very under reported."
While the bill has bipartisan backing, Republicans have said they'd like to see some changes to it, including a tweak in language tweak to language that currently requires hateful rhetoric or action to be linked to the pandemic to qualify under the bill. A number of lawmakers are concerned it might prove onerous for law enforcement to prove this link.
Hirono has said she's open to the change, but she and other Senate Democrats also want to emphasize that they see a clear link between the rise of anti-Asian sentiment and former President Donald Trump's rhetoric on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump blamed the virus on China and branded it the "Kung Flu," something Hirono has said prompted the rise in Asian hate.
Schumer said Monday morning that two bipartisan amendments will be considered during debate on the bill this week. It is unclear at this time if any others will be considered.
Hirono said she has personally experienced a growing sense of fear as crimes against her community have ratcheted up.
"It certainly gives me pause," Hirono said. "I used to walk around listening to audio tapes with my ear pods on I don't do that anymore I need to be very aware of my surroundings.
Hirono details many of her experiences as a Japanese-American immigrant in her new book, "Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story," set to release Tuesday.
Her childhood experiences have informed her legislating, both on the anti-AAPI bill and on immigration reform.
When Hirono immigrated toHawaiiwith her mother and older brother, her younger brother had to be left in Japan. She said the trauma her brother experienced has informed her politics. She's been an outspoken advocate for families immigrating to the U.S., and adamantly opposed the family separation policy implemented by the Trump administration.
"When Trump began to separate thousands of children from their parents I knew the kind of trauma we were inflicting on these children and on their families and I spoke out," Hirono said. "We now have an administration that wants to have a humane immigration policy and that is going to take time because what was left by the Trump administration was I would say an immigration policy that was not humane and that left our policies in shreds."
