‘She could have been your mother’: anti-Asian racism a year after Atlanta spa shootings

The spa shootings in Georgia killed six Asian women but as a community tries to heal, hate incidents are on the rise

Robert Peterson has been quietly grieving the death of his mother, Yong Ae Yue, in private for the last year - remembering her Korean cooking, the way she adored her grandchildren, and the pride she took in casting her vote as an American citizen. He holds on to those personal memories one year on, while many others reflect on the chilling public memory of the last moments of her life, when she was shot and killed at the spa where she worked.

The 63-year-old Korean American was one of six Asian women murdered on 16 March 2021 in a shooting rampage that targeted three Atlanta-area spas. Two others were also killed in the shootings. That attack has come to symbolize a pattern of violence that emerged with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and continues to haunt Asian American communities today.