‘This could have been me’

The six victims of Asian descent in the Atlanta-area mass shooting represented a diverse community. Their deaths have united many Asian American women.

(TOP ROW: Monica Lee video by Michelle Mishina for The Washington Post, Kym Lee video by Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Susan Lee photo by Carolyn Fong for The Washington Post; MIDDLE ROW: Julia Shyu photo by Carolyn Fong for The Washington Post, Mariah Hatta photo by Mary Inhea Kang for The Washington Post, Thao Lee video by Caroline Yang for The Washington Post; BOTTOM ROW: Snigdha Hoque video by Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Michelle Ming photo by Mengwen Cao for The Washington Post, HJ Kim photo by Sarah Pulcino for The Washington Post, Karen Watkins video by Mick Hawkins for The Washington Post)

FROM TOP: HJ Kim photo by Sarah Pulcino for The Washington Post, Monica Lee video by Michelle Mishina for The Washington Post, Susan Lee photo by Carolyn Fong for The Washington Post, Kym Lee video by Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Julia Shyu photo by Carolyn Fong for The Washington Post, Michelle Ming photo by Mengwen Cao for The Washington Post, Mariah Hatta photo by Mary Inhea Kang for The Washington Post, Snigdha Hoque video by Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Karen Watkins video by Mick Hawkins for The Washington Post, Thao Lee video by Caroline Yang for The Washington Post)

They represented a diverse community: A single mother of two sons in their early 20s. Two emigrated from South Korea in the 1980s. A grandmother of six in a multiracial family with relatives in Japan. A Chinese American mother who owned two spa businesses. One had no family in the United States.

Six of the eight people who died in the Atlanta-area spa shootings in March were women of Asian descent. They represented a diaspora that includes some 50 ethnicities, even more languages and dialects, and countless experiences.

Yet despite the diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) experience, the women’s deaths resonated throughout the community in a distinctly familiar way.

And they particularly hit home for many Asian American women: That could have been my mother, my grandmother. It could have been me.

So different, yet somehow so similar: That has long been a characteristic of the Asian diaspora in America, said Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, a professor of Asian American and diaspora studies at Duke University: The “idea of ‘people like you’ as Asian Americans has been strangely specific yet diffuse.”

“My immigrant experience is not the same as these women, but I felt it in my bones. Because to be here is to be the same,” Chow said.

We spoke with 10 Asian American women across the country about the connection they feel to the six slain women, despite living drastically different lives. They shared stories about the sacrifices of their immigrant parents and grandparents, and the resilience required to assimilate in a country where Asians face ongoing harassment and xenophobia.

About this story

Videos by Drea Cornejo. Photos by Mary Inhea Kang, Michelle Mishina, Carolyn Fong, Mick Hawkins, Drea Cornejo, Sarah Pulcino, Caroline Yang and Mengwen Cao. Family photos were provided by the women featured in this story: Julia Shyu, Snigdha Hoque, Karen Watkins, Kym Lee and HJ Kim. Additional video by Mick Hawkins.

Editing by Tiffany Harness. Photo editing by Karly Domb Sadof and Monique Woo. Video editing by Nicki DeMarco. Design editing by Matt Callahan and Suzette Moyer. Design and development by Cece Pascual. Copy editing by Allison Cho and Jordan Melendrez. Digital operations by Marian Liu.

Michelle Ye Hee Lee is a reporter on The Washington Post's national desk.