A Vancouver family is speaking out after a 61-year-old Filipina woman was shoved against her car with no apparent provocation this month.
The incident was captured on security video, and the victim’s family believes the incident was racially motivated.
Armor Valor Corrales says his great aunt MaryLou was loading groceries into her car outside the 88 Supermarket on Victoria Drive last Saturday.
Video of the incident shows a Caucasian woman walking up behind her, shoving her into the side of the vehicle, then walking away.
Staff at the market confirmed the veracity of the video.
“From our understanding it was intentional, because as you can see from the video the sidewalk was quite wide,” said Corrales. “She’s shaken up.”
Corrales’ aunt now has doubts about shopping at the market, which is the closest to her home, he said.
“She went to go shop there last week, but she didn’t go alone. She went with a group of people to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
He said the woman said something to his aunt, but she was in shock and didn’t catch the words.
The family reported the incident to Vancouver police, but Corrales says they don’t intend to push for charges.
He said they are more interested in getting the word out about anti-Asian racism, which he said continues to surge during the pandemic.
“I want people to realize that we are not the virus, Asians are not the virus,” he said.
“I want them to know that we are all in this together, we’re all contributing towards getting rid of this virus, and acts like this against groups of people of different ethnicities, it’s not stopping the virus.”
Vancouver police have documented a disturbing 600 per cent spike in anti-Asian racist incidents since the start of the pandemic, including verbal harassment, graffiti and assaults.
Corrales said the incident was particularly insulting because a number of people in his family, and in the Filipino community more generally, work in the health-care sector on the front lines of the pandemic.
Vancouver police confirmed they are investigating, but said it remains unclear if the incident was racially motivated.