The fatal shootings of eight people — six of them women of Asian descent — at Georgia massage businesses in March propelled Claire Xu into action. Within days, she helped organize a rally condemning violence against Asian Americans that drew support from a broad group of activists, elected officials and community members. But her parents objected. “‘We don’t want you to do this,’” Xu, 31, recalled their telling her afterward. ”‘You can write about stuff, but don’t get your face out there.’” The shootings and other recent attacks on Asian Americans have exposed a generational divide in the community. Many young activists say their parents and other elders are saddened by the violence but question the value of protests or worry about their consequences. They’ve also found the older generations tend to identify more closely with their ethnic groups — Chinese or Vietnamese, for example — and appear reluctant to acknowledge racism. That divide makes it harder to forge a collective Asian American constituency that can wield political power and draw attention to the wave of assaults against people of Asian descent in the U.S. since the coronavirus pandemic began, community leaders say. “In our original countries, where our ancestors came from, they wouldn’t even imagine that someone from Bangladesh would be lumped in the same group as someone from Laos,” said Angela Hsu, president of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association. But those differences obscure a shared experience of “feeling like we’re constantly thought of as being foreign in our own country,” said U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, of New Jersey. Much of the recent violence against Asian Americans has targeted the elderly, and some seniors have attended rallies to condemn it. But Cora McDonnell, 79, said she did not want to speak out, though she is now scared to walk to the church blocks from her Seattle home. She emigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1985 and said her culture was “more respectful.” “You talk maybe in your family, but not really publicly,” she said. “You don’t really blurt out things.” Lani Wong, 73, said she understood that feeling, though she does not adhere to it. “Just don’t stir the pot, don’t get involved,” said Wong, chairwoman of the National Association of Chinese Americans. “I think that was the mentality of the older generation.” Some young Asian Americans said they were frustrated by family members’ reactions to the shootings. E. Lim said it was “infuriating and really sad” to hear her parents cast aspersions on the massage work done by some of the Georgia shooting victims. “It’s almost like this desperation for denial so that they don’t have to recognize that there is a world that hates them,” said Lim, organizing and civic engagement director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. A pastor in the Atlanta area, Tae Chin, said his Korean mother-in-law also questioned the victims’ line of work while urging him not to focus on race. Four of the slain women were of Korean descent. “‘Just work hard. Just live. Just be a good person, and they’ll see someday,’” Chin, 41, recalled her saying on a phone call after the March 16 attack. “I’m like, ‘That’s why we have this problem to begin with, because that’s exactly what we do.’” Allison Wang’s parents were similarly inclined and thought she was wasting her time protesting the shootings. “I think they believe that it’s more important to focus on your career and family and don’t really feel like we can make a difference,” said Wang, who helped Xu put together the rally in downtown Atlanta. For Raymond Tran’s family, the political history of one of their home countries played a role in opposing his involvement in any organizations. The attorney raised in Los Angeles said that when he was growing up, his parents told him about an uncle imprisoned and tortured by Vietnamese communists after joining a student group. Racist polices in the U.S. strictly limited immigrants from Asia until the 1960s, so many Asian families have been in the country for only a generation or two. It’s not unusual for new immigrants to focus on providing for their families, avoiding attention in favor of assimilation. Asian immigrants face the added burden of the “model minority” stereotype that portrays them as industrious, law-abiding and uncomplaining, and ascribes their achievements to those traits, historians and advocates say. “It divides generations,” said Maki Hsieh, CEO of the Asian Hall of Fame, a program that honors Asian leaders. “It divides Asians from each other, and ultimately it divides them from other groups.” Xu said her parents worried about her safety, but she thinks their objections to her activism also stemmed in part from a desire to avoid trouble. They understood the need to speak out against anti-Asian violence but didn’t want her to do it, she said. “I wholeheartedly believe if this is the way everybody thinks, then there won’t be any progress,” she said. The younger generation is also coming of age during a period of renewed racial awareness — reflected in last year’s Black Lives Matter protests — that makes it impossible for Asians in the U.S. to “fly under the racial radar anymore,” said Nitasha Tamar Sharma, director of the Asian American Studies program at Northwestern University. In addition to holding rallies and vigils across the country in the wake of the Georgia shootings, young organizers have shared stories of racist encounters and used the hashtag #StopAsianHate to raise awareness about the dangers Asian Americans face. “In America, we are all one,” said Hsu, the bar association president. “We are viewed in a similar way.”

Prosecutors trying a white former Minneapolis police officer in George Floyd’s death put Floyd’s girlfriend on the witness stand Thursday in an effort to humanize him for the jury, but her testimony also gave the defense an opportunity to delve into Floyd’s drug use. Prosecutors used a legal doctrine called “spark of life” to call Courteney Ross to testify about Floyd’s life, and are expected to call a Floyd family member to the witness stand later. They are trying to portray Floyd’s complicated life, from his childhood in Houston’s Third Ward, where he came to be seen as a mentor, to his struggle with drug addiction in Minneapolis. But the “spark of life” doctrine, which is rare outside Minnesota, is controversial among defense attorneys and could complicate the trial. Here’s how legal experts see that playing out: Also read:Teen who shot Floyd video says he was 'begging for his life' WHAT IS THE “SPARK OF LIFE” DOCTRINE? The doctrine emerged in 1985 when a defendant accused of killing a police officer argued to the Minnesota Supreme Court that the prosecutor prejudiced the jury with a speech about the officer’s childhood, his parents and his marriage. The prosecutor became so emotional the trial court had to take a recess. The court ruled that prosecutors can present evidence that a murder victim was “not just bones and sinews covered with flesh, but was imbued with the spark of life. The prosecution has some leeway to show that spark and present the victim as a human being as long as it is not an attempt to invoke any undue sympathy or inflame the jury’s passions.” WHAT DID THE JURY LEARN? Ross told jurors that she and Floyd were both drug addicts stemming from their struggles with chronic pain. She said they “tried really hard to break that addiction many times.” “We’re learning that Floyd is not a perfect person, as none of us are,” said David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. After watching the first days of testimony, Schultz said it was clear prosecutors were “pulling at the emotional strings of the jury” to make a case for convicting Derek Chauvin of the most severe charges. Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter. Prosecutors say he knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, pinning the handcuffed man to the ground. The most serious charge — second-degree murder — against the former officer carries up to 40 years in prison. Also read:Diverse jury so far for ex-cop's trial in Floyd's death “What the spark of life is bringing in, is painting a picture of perhaps Chauvin was indifferent to the problems to the health and the life and safety of George Floyd,” Schultz said. DID IT BACKFIRE? When Chauvin’s defense attorney Eric Nelson cross-examined Ross, he questioned her on Floyd’s drug use, driving hard for her to talk about how Floyd was hospitalized in March 2020 and how she had speculated that it was because he had used heroin. Ross drove Floyd to the emergency room because he was suffering from extreme stomach pain, and she later learned he had overdosed. “It was the defense’s best day in terms of testimony,” said F. Clayton Tyler, a prominent local defense attorney. “The fact that he overdosed, I thought that was huge.” Legal experts expect Floyd’s cause of death to be key at trial. The defense has argued Floyd’s death was caused by his drug use, underlying health conditions and the adrenaline flowing through his body. An autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system. Attorneys for both sides will bring expert witnesses to provide competing testimony about what killed Floyd. Jurors will have to decide. “It’s an excellent tactic for the state to try to get jurors to feel sorry for a person because he’s an addict, but in this case, being an addict means he’s violating the law,” said Joe Friedberg, a defense attorney. Some legal experts have said if prosecutors go too far to invoke undue sympathy, Chauvin’s defense could have grounds for an appeal. But Friedberg doubted that would happen, saying Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill would halt testimony if it goes too far. Tyler also reasoned that the defense was bound to highlight Floyd’s drug addiction at some point anyway, so by using “spark of life” prosecutors can address it head-on while showing “who he was as an individual.”