AAPI Women Organize Queens Bike Ride Against Racism This Saturday

ASTORIA/LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Three Asian American women in Queens, two of whom are running for New York City Council, are organizing a bike ride through the borough's streets this Saturday in solidarity against anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) violence.

The Bike For Justice event — organized by Helen Ho, co-founder of the Biking Public Project, along with Julie Won and Carolyn Tran, who are both running for city council seats in Queens — will gather at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Queensbridge Park in Long Island City, and traverse a 10 mile route through the borough starting at 2:30 p.m.

It’s important to all the organizers that this ride is led and organized by AAPI women — something that’s pretty uncommon in the worlds of bike transportation planning and bike advocacy that Ho, an urban planner and longtime cyclist, is a part of.

“Being in this space is extremely lonely for someone who looks like me,” she said, pointing out that many of the bike protests she attended over the summer were run by men, and that involving more women, especially women of color, in the cycling community — which is known to be full of “MAMIL, ‘middle aged men in lycra’” — is still a challenge.

After a year of increased racist and violent attacks on Asian communities amid the pandemic, the racist mass shootings in Atlanta this March that killed six AAPI women, was a catalyst for the bike ride’s organizers to think about the role of women in activism against AAPI violence.

“Over two thirds of violence against the AAPI communities are against women, but our voices and analysis are often made invisible or is secondary to men,” Tran told Patch, adding that, like Ho, many bike protests she’s been to center men and use AAPI women, and women of color, “as token pieces, but our leadership or work isn’t centered or uplifted. It’s not enough anymore to say that you believe in and support the leadership of women, it is our pain and our voices that deserve to be front and center,” she said.

For her, this ride is “a reminder that AAPI women have been leading the fight for justice and we will no longer be erased” and is also “in solidarity with other communities who have been impacted by systematic and racial violence.”

While there are many things people can do to combat anti-AAPI violence and hate crimes, for Ho biking, which has long been a part of her personal therapy, is one way that people can protest while also gathering and forming a community.

“A lot of us have been so isolated during the pandemic, trying to keep each other safe, but it's also socially alienating,” she said, adding that hearing how no one went to help Noel Quintana, an AAPI man who was slashed on the subway in February really upset her.

“We are less likely to take care of each other if we don't know who our neighbors are,” she said.

In addition to advocating for a more welcoming city, protesting on bikes is a form of intersectional activism for Won, who hopes that the ride highlights the intersection of transportation justice and racial justice.

“For too long car-centric infrastructure has ravaged communities of color, polluting our air and dividing our communities. Saturday we ride in solidarity with victims of racial injustice and in pursuit of a safer, more connected and more welcoming city,” she wrote in a statement to Patch.

The ride’s exact route will remain a secret until Saturday, but Ho said that it will end after four to five hours in a neighborhood “full of great AAPI-owned restaurants for dinner.”

Also, she said that it’s welcome to cyclists of all identities skill levels, pointing out that Tran’s 8-year-old daughter, who biked alongside both of them in protests this summer, will be attending.

“She’s growing up in a very socially conscious, political family, so going to these rides isn’t uncommon to her, but for me it’s important to normalize that justice is an everyday part of our lives, especially in public spaces” said Tran of her daughter, adding that she actually honed her biking skills during last summer’s justice rides around the city.

“She’s seeing that we can demand justice in every aspect of our lives: In protests, in speaking, and in biking,” she said.

Find out more information about the ride on Ho's Twitter here.