U.S. Olympic Athlete Sakura Kokumai Targeted In Anti-Asian Rant

ORANGE, CA — It was supposed to be a day like any other for Sakura Kokumai, a U.S. Olympic athlete in karate who went to Grijalva Park last week to exercise — but her workout was interrupted when a man began shouting at her.

The 28-year-old Olympian recorded the man’s profanity-laced tirade on her phone and shared it to her Instagram account to spotlight a growing trend of anti-Asian racism that has gripped the country.

“Usually, I like to keep my social media positive, but I realized that these issues [need] to be addressed so we can protect each other,” Kokumai said on her post.

In one of the videos, the man could be seeing walking by Kokumai while shouting “get away from me, alright? Don't be looking at me behind my back," as she asks him what she had done.

She told Los Angeles television station KTLA she was scared in the moment but couldn't help but laugh at man when it happened, saying, "You really don't know what to do.” Kokumai, who is Japanese American, said she didn't expect the anti-Asian incidents that have been on the rise in the country to reach her in her own back yard.

As the man left the park, Kokumai said she could hear him shouting racial slurs. In one of the videos, the man could be heard calling her little and that she should go home, while in another he called her Chinese.

“I was aware about the anti-Asian hate that was going on. You see it almost every day on the news,” she said. “But I didn’t think it would happen to me at a park I usually go to to train.”

People of Asian descent make up 11.8 percent of Orange's population, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Across Orange County, where the city of Orange is located, Asians make up 21.7 percent of the population.

At least 110 incidents have taken placed in the country since March 2020 involving anti-Asian bias, according to The New York Times. There have also been additional attacks on people of Asian descent where it's not clear if race was a clear motivation.

These incidents have occurred everywhere from Oakland's Chinatown neighborhood to Cleveland, Ohio, where Asians are physically or verbally attacked.

The incidents have prompted some grassroots movements to form to help protect Asians.

One group has been distributing personal safety alarms in New York City, while another group in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood have volunteered to patrol the streets to deter anti-Asian attacks.

Back in Orange, Kokumai told KTLA a thing that stood out to her during the whole incident was that there were people around who mostly stood back while the man berated her.

“One lady did come up towards the end, asking if I was OK,” Kokumai said. “But until then, as he was walking up, yelling, there were people but they kind of kept to themselves the entire time … I thought, ‘What if this was my grandma or my mom?’ That scares me.”