As the nation enacts a new historic anti-lynching bill into law, experts say there needs to be increased attention on a dark and largely untold piece of Asian American history: lynchings that terrorized communities.
The big picture: Under the new law, which comes after over 200 failed attempts to codify federal anti-lynching legislation, a crime could be prosecuted as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury. Some of the first anti-Asian crimes that could fall under this definition were recorded in the 1800s at the height of white economic anxiety.
