Raising Our Voices: South Asian Americans Address Hate (3/3)

Neck down, his body is completely disabled.

He cannot move his arms or legs or nothing for food and.

For every little thing he has to be depend on somebody else.

I cannot work. Now, I wanted to help support my parents.

Now I cannot do that.

I had so many other dreams in my life.

And now I cannot do them.

In 1987 the Jersey journal, a local New Jersey newspaper got a got a letter.

From a group calling themselves the dot Busters.

And the letter promised to inflict violence upon Indians in the Jersey City area
until they left.

So, it was essentially.

A manifesto, a call to war against all of the Indians living in that area.

These crimes had been occurring.

Prior to the letter.

And people knew that there was growing animus against
the South Asian community in Jersey City.

Nev Rose Modi had just moved to Jersey City with his parents.

And he had gone to a restaurant with a work colleague.

And as they were leaving, a group of about 10 or 11
kids were hanging around outside the restaurant.

And started taunting him.

They started calling him names. He was bald.

So they were calling him Kojak and baldy, they called him Hindu.

And a fight ensued.

And in that fight.

They killed him, they took a brick and smashed his head into the ground.

And every time he got up, they would just hit him again.

And prop him up and hit him again until finally.

He hit the back of his head and didn't get up again.

He was then in a coma for a couple of days and then died in the hospital.

It was August 98.

The time was about 9:30 in the evening.

I still remember one car pulled in the parking spot. They pull
their car from here.

They sprayed some kind of chemicals and they sprayed from here.

Right here.

I was holding four cups of tea in my hand. So, I, everything got on my palm. I got burned on my palm.

So I was a little upset but you know, the boys, they started yelling and screaming.

And showing fingers and speaking bad words.

And they said you Indians go back to your country. They did commit a crime.

They committed battery and assault.

And what made it a hate crime was the fact that they said.

You Indians go back to your country.

That was just an additional element to what already was a crime.

Network, people. They approached us.

About the incidents and actually speaking, I was not ready to talk about this.

But when I figured it out that these people.

They are helping me and they are on my side,

Then I started talking about what happened.

What we found out was that initially the law enforcement agencies were treating it as a minor misdemeanor.

But in actuality, you know, this should have been treated as a hate crime.

So due to San's timely intervention and working.

With these mainstream organizations and law enforcement.

We were able, to prosecute these perpetrators under the hate crime statutes.