The Asian American Mentor Program held their first workshop of the semester on Wednesday in Hahn 101. The topic was hate crimes.

"We were very impressed with the turnout," said Jason Yoo ’04, one of the organizers of the workshop. Forty people attended the event.

The six student organizers of the event were Yoo, Tammy Park ’04, Vivian Chan ’04, Vicki Chen ’04, Eddo Lee ’04 and Michelle Park ’04.

The meeting started with a spoken word album that featured a variety of overlapping bigoted remarks.

A "Hate Crimes Pre-Workshop Survey" sheet was also available for students when they arrived. Some of the questions asked on the worksheet were "What do you consider to be a hate crime? What would be considered a hate incident? Do you think (Asian American) hate crimes are a serious issue on college campuses? What would you do if someone you know were involved in a hate crime—as the perpetrator? As the victim?"

According to AAMP, the definition of a hate crime is "any criminal or attempted [criminal] act which is motivated by the victim’s race, ethnicity, religion, [sexual] orientation, gender, or disability status."

A hate incident, on the other hand, was defined as "an action or behavior that is motivated by hate, but is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression."

AAMP then divided the participants into two groups. The groups discussed different cases of hate crimes that have occurred in the past few years.

"These are really tragic crimes and people are getting away with it," said Park.

Some of the hate crimes discussed were a series of incidents on the UC Davis campus where members of predominately white fraternities harassed members of Asian fraternities and sororities.

Park alluded to hate incidents occurring at the Five Colleges. "We have [had] hate incidents in the past that the administration has tried to hush up," she said.

In order to give evidence to their claims, the organizers posted a list of hate incidents that have occurred on-campus.

The organizers of the workshop then went on to discuss other issues relating to hate crimes, including incidents that have taken place after the September 11 attacks.

AAMP wrapped up the workshop with a summary of what people can do as a community to prevent hate crimes.

AAMP intends to host another workshop, called "Power Dynamics", during the last week of November.