Hate Crimes Against Asians

During the fall of 1987 a street gang named Dotbusters attacked and threatened South Asians. Their name “Dotbusters” was created from the influence of the bindi (traditional Hindu dot on the forehead) that Hindu women and girls wear. This gang published a letter in a newspaper that strongly oppressed the existence of Indian people in Jersey City. Racial discrimination was the main reason why Dotbusters wrote this letter. It contained many harsh words and no understandable reason for wanting the Indian people out of the city. Instead, the gang wrote about how their race is to not be accepted in the city because they are sick mentally and physically. In order to kick the Indian people out the gang would physically abuse them. Whenever a random Indian person was seen on the street while the gang was around that individual would get hit. The gang initiated countless attacks on the innocent people so that they would just escape from the city due to the merciless abuse. Most of their crimes were committed in Jersey City while the gang settles mainly in New York and New Jersey. The Dotbusters abhorred the Indian people and did anything they could to drive them out of the city.

One major incident occurred when a South Asian immigrant, Navrose Mody was murdered by the Dotbusters after he was beaten into a coma. This case angered many Indian people who fought against the court to charge the gang for murdering an innocent man. However, the civilians lost the case because the court did not consider this to be a hate crime. Only a few days after this murder case, another man was killed after being brutally beaten into a coma. The Indian immigrant community started to take political actions against this gang because it was corrupting their lives. Eventually, the Indian community realized that these actions taken by the Dotbusters were merely for discrimination of South Asian people and not just race in general.

Finally, a group was formed by the name of Indian Youth Against Racism that kept a record of the hate crimes and later on helped pass a bill for the discrimination against South Asian people. The violence was considered as bias crimes and the bill passed created required penalties for the wrong actions caused by the Dotbusters. This hate crime incident affected many South Asians because they did nothing wrong but were hated because of their race. Any race being discriminated would want to fight back to earn respect but instead the South Asians continued to live their lives regardless of the brutal violence.