Horrified by the surge of anti-Asian violence, she’s giving her neighborhood instruments to guard themselves

Horrified by the surge of anti-Asian violence, she's giving her community tools to protect themselves

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Michelle Tran, a Chinese and Vietnamese American medical student living in the city, was horrified by this spike in violence and wanted to do something to help her community.

“As an Asian American female, I’ve seen that we can be targeted for what we look like,” Tran said. “My friends started getting spit on and yelled slurs and being called, ‘Chinese Virus.'”

Tran co-founded Soar Over Hate, a nonprofit that works to support and protect the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in New York and San Francisco.

“I started to realize that many people don’t know where to get resources or don’t have the money to purchase a personal alarm,” she said.

Since March 2021, Tran says the organization has handed out more than 25,000 personal protective devices. They prioritized the most vulnerable, such as essential workers, the elderly, women and low-income Asian Americans.

Often at the nonprofit’s distribution events, hundreds of AAPI community members line up to receive a…

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