A memorial to Than Than Htwe, an immigrant from Myanmar who was fatally injured in an attack in the New York subway system, at a funeral home in Brooklyn, August 3, 2021. (Natalie Keyssar/The New York Times)
NEW YORK — They are small figures moving through a subway station on a Saturday in Manhattan — a mother and her son speaking softly to each other in Burmese.
Than Than Htwe, 58, is a homebody, content to stay at her family’s Brooklyn apartment on the weekend meditating or simmering fish in a pot of lemon grass and ginger. But she scheduled a doctor’s appointment for this morning so it would not conflict with her job stitching custom aprons.
By Htwe’s side is her only child, Kyaw Zaw Hein. At 22, he carries the hopes of his family on slight shoulders. His parents waited more than a decade in Myanmar for a visa so he could attend an American university. They arrived just three years ago.
Hein stays close to his mother as they climb the stairs that lead to Canal Street in Chinatown, where the July sun waits. He feels protective of her and looks forward to the day when he earns a salary that provides for all of them.
The landing is in sight when Htwe urges her son to “run up.”
Perhaps she is merely trying to hurry them along. Perhaps she has seen the man behind them with the angry eyes.
Hein attempts to quicken his steps, but he feels a hand bearing down on his blue backpack that then yanks him off his feet until his body is falling. He does not know that his mother has somehow also been forced backward, that she is tumbling down the stairs, that her head has smacked against the tile floor.
When his eyes adjust, he is on the ground, his backpack still on. The man who pulled him down is hovering nearby, a look of disdain on his face. For a moment, Hein worries he will be hurt again. But then the man disappears into the station.
Htwe lies on the ground, her eyes half open. Her son shakes her shoulders, calls to her, tries to cradle her head. That is when he sees the blood in her dark hair, drops of crimson on the ground. He clasps her hand. And screams.
From Myanmar to America
Behind the 1.2 million Asians who call New York City home are so many stories of arrival, newcomers who were willing to be rendered vulnerable by an unfamiliar language and culture, believing that their troubles were worth the promise of possibility.
That journey has intensified for Asian immigrants who have tried to put down roots for themselves during a recent season of fear. In addition to their daily struggles to belong, they have navigated a pandemic whose origin in China has been associated with their race.
In New York alone, victims of Asian descent have been shoved, spit on, urinated on, stabbed in the back, beaten with a hammer or cane, punched unconscious, choked and stomped and kicked in the head. There have been more than 115 anti-Asian crimes reported to the New York Police Department this year. In 2019, there were three.
The violent attacks have tended to receive attention, but with each new report, the last one seems to fade. Shattered lives play out in unknown ways. Victims have been physically and emotionally scarred, their families left to tend to them. Trajectories have been deeply altered.
For Htwe, left lifeless and bleeding on a subway station floor, it has meant an unimaginable finale for a woman whose family had emptied their savings on plane tickets to America.
She and her husband, Myint Shein, would have stayed in Yangon, Myanmar, even with its ongoing civil war and history of deadly military coups, if not for their son. They wanted to offer him a different path.
In December 2018, the family arrived in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn. Shein, one of 12 children, had a brother in the neighborhood who had immigrated as a teenager and was a New York police officer. Htwe also had family nearby.
Relatives helped them find a basement apartment where the sunlight was sparse and the ceilings low, but the monthly rent was $500 cheaper than on the ground floor.
Shein, 53, was hired as a sushi chef at Ushiwakamaru, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. He had learned the trade years ago in Tokyo, where he met Htwe, who was a waitress. They were both ethnically Chinese but born and raised in Myanmar. For their first date, they went to a flea market.
Htwe landed a job at Tilit, which made work clothing for the restaurant and hospitality industries, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She had earned a chemistry degree in Myanmar, but never put it to use in the country’s limited job market. At Tilit she laughed with co-workers while meticulously following detailed apron patterns. Sometimes she brought in her family’s mending.
She and her husband pooled their paychecks so their son could study math and economics at Fordham University. Hein loaded on extra classes, in a rush to get his degree. He had a stint at a doughnut shop, but his parents told him to focus only on school.
When the coronavirus reached New York City, Htwe’s and Shein’s workplaces shut down. They received some unemployment, but their stress heightened and both lost weight. Reports of anti-Asian attacks were distressing, and they warned each other to stay alert.
The virus itself was also profoundly troubling. In the early days of the pandemic, Htwe, beloved for her patience, screamed at her son if he attempted to leave the house.
The three saw relatives, but otherwise preferred to stick to one another near home, tiptoeing out a quiet life.
When her job opened back up, Htwe was the first to return to the sewing room, eager to make money. Often, the owners’ new puppy, a St. Bernard, was found at her feet. Jenny Goodman, who started Tilit with her husband, said Htwe would bring the dog purple yams and let it nuzzle up against her while she worked.
“She was a kind, kind soul.”
A hospital vigil, and a suspect
Shein was home in bed when his son called with words that did not make sense.
Ambulance. Mom hit her head. Come to the hospital.
When he arrived at Bellevue Hospital, he found that his wife of 23 years lay too still. “When you left, everything was OK,” Shein said, his voice wavering.
He and his son became regulars in the building, lingering near a woman who could not tell them what to do next. Relatives and co-workers visited. Wake up, they said, stroking her arm.
Hein served as the contact for the police, giving a statement to detectives. Images of the man believed to be the attacker were released to the media. The police soon announced that they had a suspect, identified from tips. His name was David Robinson, 52. And he could not be located.
The police called the crime a botched robbery, based on Hein’s description of the incident. But that began to bother Hein, who wondered whether he and his mother were preyed upon because of their race.
A local Asian American activist raised $10,000 as a reward for information leading to an arrest. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, held up Robinson’s photo at a news conference and said Asians were being hunted down in the city with impunity.
The events made Hein think justice would be hastened.
After 10 days, Htwe was still unconscious. On July 27, father and son stood for hours in a corner of her room. Finally, her son knelt beside her and bowed three times. Her husband said with reluctance, “This is the last time I will come to see you.”
The next day, Htwe was taken off life support. She had become a homicide victim, her killer still free.
They buried her with a string of pearls and a white winter hat to cover the wounds.
‘I didn’t do enough’
The police are not investigating Htwe’s death as an anti-Asian attack, although the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it was examining the possibility. It would likely take explicit evidence, such as the utterance of a racial slur, for the attacker, who is Black, to be charged with a hate crime. Only a tiny percentage of the attacks involving victims of Asian descent have fit this bill. The rest are often described as random.
The more Hein thinks about the way he was yanked down the stairs — as if the backpack securely on his shoulders was the tool, not the target — he is convinced the attack was racially motivated. And he has not forgotten the way the man looked at him, as if considering whether to strike, even as his mother lay motionless.
Just as troubling for Hein is the image of his mother toiling away much of her life. The last years had made her uneasy and frail.
“I would have worked if I had known this would happen,” Hein said. “I would have just let her enjoy her life. I didn’t do enough.”
Htwe’s belongings are still strewn about their tiny apartment. The home feels hushed and strange, but Hein studies, watches anime, listens to K-pop. His father meditates, feeds the birds, waters the plants.
They have yet to hear whether they will be left with costly medical bills. A relative set up a GoFundMe, but when it passed $47,000, the family shut it down, not wanting to be greedy.
Hein has been sleeping on the floor of his father’s room. His mattress is where his mother once meditated before a Buddhist altar. She would sit there for hours with prayer beads, and he would rest his head on her lap and nod off. He misses that the most.
An unclear future
What began as a trio in America will, at some point, be a household of one.
Shein has made up his mind to become a monk and return to Myanmar. His 11 siblings have left the country, but he would rather be alone than in New York.
His son understands. “I want to send him back where he is happy,” he said. The two feel good that their bond has strengthened, that they have seen each other’s tears.
They are still waiting to hear an update on Htwe’s case. Sometimes it feels as if she has been forgotten. The Police Department declined to comment but said it was hoping the public would help find Robinson.
Shein’s brother Min Liang, the New York police officer, said it is not unusual to have a suspect but no arrest. Liang, 45, works in evidence collection and has not been involved in Htwe’s case, but said he trusted the detectives who are handling it.
“There’s more than 8 million people in New York City,” he said. “They’re not going to find everybody.”
The lack of resolution has made Hein and his father anxious that the same person will hurt someone else, that Htwe’s death will have changed nothing. They also worry about running into the suspect. Their fear of public places has only amplified.
But Hein has no plans to leave with his father. He has been enamored of America ever since he was a boy and relatives visited Myanmar in Nike sneakers and crisp Nautica shirts. “Even the smell of their laundry detergent was so good,” he remembered. He plans to graduate next spring and has seen for himself the vast difference in the quality of education and job opportunities available in his new home.
It is a broken adaptation of the success he had envisioned. Who could have foreseen such sorrow? Perhaps it will be a lonely, hollow existence.
But he cannot shake the feeling that a young man like him could still rise here, could still forge a future in which he supports his father from afar and pays tribute to his mother’s hopes.
Even on his own, he could shape a version of the kind of American life they all once dreamed together.
Thank you very much. Laura and I are honored to be with you. Madam Vice President, Vice President Cheney. Governor Wolf, Secretary Haaland, and distinguished guests:
Twenty years ago, we all found -- in different ways, in different places, but all at the same moment -- that our lives would be changed forever. The world was loud with carnage and sirens, and then quiet with missing voices that would never be heard again. These lives remain precious to our country, and infinitely precious to many of you. Today we remember your loss, we share your sorrow, and we honor the men and women you have loved so long and so well.
For those too young to recall that clear September day, it is hard to describe the mix of feelings we experienced. There was horror at the scale -- there was horror at the scale of destruction, and awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it. There was shock at the audacity -- audacity of evil -- and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. And we were proud of our wounded nation.
In these memories, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 must always have an honored place. Here the intended targets became the instruments of rescue. And many who are now alive owe a vast, unconscious debt to the defiance displayed in the skies above this field.
It would be a mistake to idealize the experience of those terrible events. All that many people could initially see was the brute randomness of death. All that many could feel was unearned suffering. All that many could hear was God's terrible silence. There are many who still struggle with a lonely pain that cuts deep within.
In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile -- that they possess a core of strength that survives the worst that life can bring. We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined, emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death. We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones was a temporary and holy gift. And we found that even the longest days end.
Many of us have tried to make spiritual sense of these events. There is no simple explanation for the mix of providence and human will that sets the direction of our lives. But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge. After wandering long and lost in the dark, many have found they were actually walking, step by step, toward grace.
As a nation, our adjustments have been profound. Many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.
After 9/11, millions of brave Americans stepped forward and volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces. The military measures taken over the last 20 years to pursue dangers at their source have led to debate. But one thing is certain: We owe an assurance to all who have fought our nation's most recent battles. Let me speak directly to veterans and people in uniform: The cause you pursued at the call of duty is the noblest America has to offer. You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force for good in the world. Nothing that has followed -- nothing -- can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you, and to the honored dead, our country is forever grateful.
In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.
I come without explanations or solutions. I can only tell you what I have seen.
On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know.
At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know.
At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know.
At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action. That is the nation I know.
This is not mere nostalgia; it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been -- and what we can be again.
Twenty years ago, terrorists chose a random group of Americans, on a routine flight, to be collateral damage in a spectacular act of terror. The 33 passengers and 7 crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens selected by fate. In a sense, they stood in for us all.
The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people. Facing an impossible circumstance, they comforted their loved ones by phone, braced each other for action, and defeated the designs of evil.
These Americans were brave, strong, and united in ways that shocked the terrorists -- but should not surprise any of us. This is the nation we know. And whenever we need hope and inspiration, we can look to the skies and remember.
Experts studying the origins of the coronavirus for the World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the inquiry had “stalled” and that further delays could make it impossible to recover crucial evidence about the beginning of the pandemic.
“The window is rapidly closing on the biological feasibility of conducting the critical trace-back of people and animals inside and outside China,” the experts wrote in an editorial in the journal Nature. Several studies of blood samples and wildlife farms in China were urgently needed to understand how COVID-19 emerged, they said.
Amid a rancorous debate about whether a laboratory incident could have started the pandemic, the editorial amounted to a defense of the team’s work and an appeal for follow-up studies. A separate report by U.S. intelligence agencies into the pandemic’s origins was delivered to President Joe Biden on Tuesday, but did not offer any new answers about whether the virus emerged from a lab or in a natural spillover from animals to humans.
The international expert team, sent to Wuhan, China, in January as part of a joint inquiry by the WHO and China, has faced criticism for publishing a report in March that said a leak of the coronavirus from a lab, while possible, was “extremely unlikely.”
Immediately after the report’s release, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said the study had not adequately assessed the possibility of a lab leak.
Virus experts have leaned toward the theory that infected animals spread the virus to people. In the editorial published Wednesday, the expert team reiterated calls to test the blood of workers on wildlife farms that supplied animals to Wuhan markets, to see if they carried antibodies indicating past coronavirus infections. The team also recommended screening more farmed wildlife or livestock that could have been infected. (The editorial also notes, somewhat pessimistically, that many Chinese wildlife farms have been closed and their animals killed since the pandemic emerged, making evidence of early spillover from animals to humans hard to come by.)
The team pointed to a recent report showing that markets in Wuhan had sold live animals susceptible to the virus, including palm civets and raccoon dogs, in the two years before the pandemic began, and argued that the weight of evidence behind a natural spillover was greater than that for a lab leak.
Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virus expert and co-author of the editorial, described it in an interview as a “cry for urgency.”
“We were getting a little concerned that there really is virtually no debate about the bulk of the recommendations that are not related to the lab hypothesis, and of course there’s a lot of discussion of the lab story, particularly coming from the U.S.,” she said. “Our concern is that because of that emphasis, the rest doesn’t get any more attention.”
To identify the first cases of the virus, Koopmans said, scientists also needed to examine blood specimens from late 2019 before they are thrown away. The expert team received assurances on its visit to Wuhan that blood banks there would keep samples beyond the usual two-year period, she said, but has still not received access to them.
The Chinese government has stopped cooperating with investigations by the WHO, making it difficult to assess any theories about the virus’s origins.
Michael Ryan, a WHO official, criticized China at a news conference Wednesday for pushing unproven ideas suggesting that the coronavirus escaped from a U.S. military lab.
“It is slightly contradictory if colleagues in China are saying that the lab leak hypothesis is unfounded in the context of China, but we now need to go and do laboratory investigations in other countries for leaks there,” Ryan said.
He said, however, that Chinese scientists had reported beginning some of the follow-up studies recommended by the international expert team.
The editorial on Wednesday also raised concerns about delays at the WHO. The organization said this month that it would form an advisory group to study the emergence of new pathogens, and that the group would support inquiries into the coronavirus. The editorial warned that this new layer of bureaucracy “runs the risk of adding several months of delay.”
Tedros said Wednesday that establishing the advisory group “will not delay the progress of the studies into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.”
The WHO said it was already working to verify studies into the earliest known cases outside China.
It was a brisk morning on Nov. 9, 2007. I was stationed at Bella, a U.S. Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Two of our squads were returning from patrol, less than a mile away. The Taliban ambushed them. As other soldiers and I fended off the Taliban’s assault on our base, we heard our ambushed brothers shouting over our radios. We were ordered to stay, to protect the base. Strategy, we were told. I listened to the Taliban murder my friends.
We held a memorial service a few days later. Immediately after: Move on, we were told, we’ve got patrol. We buried our fallen that day; we put our humanity into the ground too.
Even as teenagers and 20-somethings, we understood. This war was unwinnable. I questioned then as I question now: Did my friends die for nothing? Is our blood that cheap?
Our foes in Afghanistan clarified why it was unwinnable. Intercepted radio chatter confirmed we fought Afghanis, Pakistanis, and Chechens. We got the impression the Chechens fought us to train against the Russians. And, aside from Afghanistan’s immense rare earth metal deposits, China is likely going to officially recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government because Chinese leaders will want to avoid a proxy war on their border. Smart.
Afghanistan remains a proxy war battleground. The graveyard of empires.
Invisible in Afghanistan
I returned to Los Angeles on midtour leave in 2008. Surprised acquaintances would ask: We’re still in Afghanistan? I should tell them about my unit, I thought. No running water. Choking down expired food. Killing and eating mountainside animals. Burning our waste. All while defense firms charged us for meals in inaccessible kitchens. Yes. We were still there, but we had become invisible.
America’s civil-military divide enables us to comfortably ignore our wars. This is easily proven: Ask an American how many countries we are bombing. Few know. Or look to the lack of national response when the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had long manipulated information to justify continuing our war in Afghanistan. The blood of our wars is cheap. This devaluation of life is a creature of privilege – and it is lethal.
Our civil-military divide is simple. The military is a family affair. Less than 1% of Americans serve in the military, many of them have family who served. Of that 1%, about 10% have seen combat, perhaps only once. We ask the few to execute the foreign policy of the many, call them heroes, and then ignore them – like during COVID-19's outbreak. This strategy made a 20-year war politically affordable and financially profitable.
Winners and losers
Since Sept. 11, 2001, America’s top five defense firms’ stock values have soared, an analysis by The Intercept found. Boeing’s stock value has increased 974.97%. Lockheed Martin’s? 1,235.6%. The defense stocks outperformed the stock market by 58% since 2001. America’s defense industry won our tax dollars, some taxpayers felt we avenged 9/11, others settled for detachment, but the Taliban won Afghanistan. Is this the outcome America asked my friends to die for?
If the current discourse offers any indication, many will say “yes.” They view the military as corporate stooges, victims, or colonizers. Others will say “no, our servicemembers are heroes.” A similar cultural schism is seen with our police. Except that here, reinforcing this divide does more than swamp efforts to fix America’s policing problems, it makes endless war politically affordable by absolving commentators from doing more than parroting their political ideology. Whether our armed forces are sinners or saints, they are othered, made expendable – this attitude enabled the defense industry to capture America’s once mighty budget surplus.
This state of affairs cheapens servicemembers’ lives to make war politically affordable. This privileged spiral extends from the decision against killing Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001, to my acquaintances being surprised we were still in Afghanistan in 2008, to Afghans now falling from planes. Everyone needs America’s wars to become politically expensive.
How do we increase war’s political cost? Humanize the people who serve us. Trade hero worship for empathy, at all levels. Stop drawing political divides around the lives you have a say in spending. Do more than comment. Organize. Vote. Audit the Pentagon.
The morality we spent tolerating the war in Afghanistan was perhaps our nation’s greatest casualty. Without accepting this, we will fail to protect our morality the next time war threatens it. If we fail, we will author another chapter in an American legacy embodied by Vietnam and Afghanistan. We cannot afford another loss.
Steven Kerns is a Harvard Law School graduate practicing environmental law in California. He is a former 173rd Airborne paratrooper whose Army company, the Chosen Few, fought some of the bloodiest battles of the Afghanistan War from 2007-08. Kerns is on the board of advisers for Team Afghan Power, a nonprofit that enables community development in Afghanistan’s rural villages.
