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Many Asian students fear return to S. Phila. classes

Chaofei Zheng hiked up his shirt to reveal an angry bruise, about four inches long, on his right side. He pointed to a matching yellow-and-purple mark above his left eyebrow.

Mabel Chan looks on during a news conference Friday where Chinese students spoke about rising tension at South Philadelphia High School. in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Mabel Chan looks on during a news conference Friday where Chinese students spoke about rising tension at South Philadelphia High School. in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)Read more

Chaofei Zheng hiked up his shirt to reveal an angry bruise, about four inches long, on his right side. He pointed to a matching yellow-and-purple mark above his left eyebrow.

"I'm scared to go to school," Zheng, 19, a freshman at South Philadelphia High School, said through a translator yesterday.

Zheng is one of several - community organizers say 30 or more - students who were attacked at the school on Thursday, targeted, they said, because they're Asian.

Racial violence at the school is not new, but students and activists say this week's attacks are emblematic of a problem that's not going away.

"There's a corrosive culture that's hurting all the kids at the school," said Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United, who said the district must apologize and "admit that there's a serious problem at South Philly High School."

District officials acknowledge that the school has problems and racial tensions, but say that before the incident, violence was down by 55 percent this school year. Inroads have been made, they say.

According to students, fights between African American and Asian students started this week on the streets and spilled over into the 900-student building on Thursday.

Seventy percent of the South Broad Street school's students are African American; 18 percent are Asian; about 6 percent are white; and 5 percent are Latino. Many recent immigrants attend the school, home to a large English for Speakers of Other Languages program.

Zheng, Jia Rong Lin, and Hang Liu say they were three of eight students targeted during sixth-period lunch on Thursday. There were at least five separate attacks inside school and on the street. Seven students were treated for minor injuries at Methodist Hospital.

The three say they were ready to go to lunch when they heard word that Asian students might be attacked. They worried that it wasn't safe to go into the lunchroom, but an adult school employee told them they would be fine.

Lin, 16, a ninth grader, was punched repeatedly in the back of his head, he said. Liu, 18, also a freshman, said he also was punched in the head. None of the three said they knew who attacked them or how many students struck them. Many immigrant students enter U.S. high schools in their mid- to late teens.

The three said that in some cases, students went from classroom to classroom looking for Asian students to target.

District officials said 10 students had been suspended with intent to expel. As of last night, no arrests had been made, but a police spokesman said the investigation continued and charges were pending.

"We have asked that the Police Department prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law," said Michael Silverman, the regional superintendent who oversees South Philadelphia High.

Wei Chen, who formed the South Philadelphia Chinese American Student Association last year after a spate of attacks, saw the violence erupt on Thursday but was not injured. Chen, 18, a senior, said the attackers had no specific problem with their victims.

"They didn't know each other," Chen said. "They just see the Asian face and they punch it."

Kelly Muth, a Cambodian student who said she witnessed one of the Thursday attacks, said she thought she knew what triggered the violence.

"Last week, a group of Vietnamese students jumped a black guy, so they came back for revenge," Muth said. "But they targeted anybody, anybody Asian."

Other Asian students said they had long been afraid to speak out at school, even when they witnessed violence.

Chen, who stayed home from school yesterday, stressed that it was a small number of students making things unsafe for everyone.

"I have many African American friends; they teach me to say hello," he said, displaying an elaborate series of hand clasps and slaps, street language that makes him cool. "Every group has good students and bad students."

Chen said there had been some progress at the school this year - more community meetings and weekly sessions with administrators where students point out possible problems. Classes for students learning English used to be on a separate floor, with immigrants kept away from native English speakers, Chen said.

But the new principal, LaGreta Brown, ended that practice, he said. Brown was not available for comment.

South Philadelphia senior Shaquille Gaskins, a member of a group established this year to improve the school climate, said the attacks on Asian students were a blot on the school's improved conditions.

"I have been here since ninth grade, and I can say this is a better place this year, much better," he said.

Silverman said administrators would continue to weed out problem students, remind others of the rules, and reach out to community groups to calm fears.

The school called students who stayed home from school yesterday, sent letters in multiple languages to all parents, and will hold more meetings next week with parents and students, he said.

Officials rely on students to tip off officials about what's going on in the community, Silverman said.

"The principal here is new, and I'm sure as she's here longer, I'm sure the trust will grow, and kids will tell her more of what's going on in the community," he said.

But Xu Lin, an organizer with the Chinatown Development Corp. who hopped onto the subway to help some of the victims Thursday, said more needs to be done, and quickly.

"There is improvement, but when you see 30 students attacked in one day, and all of them being Asian? That's terrible," Lin said.

Lin and others said the Asian students deserved an apology and better programs to educate various ethnic groups about one another.

Last night, Silverman, Brown, and other district officials met for more than two hours with some students and organizers.

Silverman said students were urged to return to school and told changes were coming inside the building and outside. Students who want to transfer to other schools will be assisted, but those who stay will see improvement, he said.

"We need to build a real community at that school, and when you build a real community, you don't really have these situations happen anymore," Silverman said.

But Chen, president of the Chinese American student group, said many pupils were still too afraid to go to school.

"We just want to study. We want to make friends, we don't want to fight," he said. "Kids are still scared."