Child Death Places Spotlight On S.Fla.'s Asian Community
MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- The tragedy surrounding Aaron Vu has placed a spotlight on a group within our community that largely goes unnoticed - South Florida's Asian community.
"We're here, we're under the radar. That's why most of the time you don't see us around," said Winnie Tang.
Tang is the president of the Asian American Federation of Florida. Although Asians make up 6 percent of the US population, in Miami-Dade they are barely more than one percent. In Broward, it's over 3 percent.
"The Asian American community as we know here is a really hard working group and we operate a lot of small businesses," said Tang.
That's true when it comes to Aaron Vu's tragedy. Vu's family came from Vietnam and operated a nail salon business.
The Asian community also tends to be close knit, and prone to keeping to themselves.
"It seems like it is a very quiet population, the Asian community," said CBS4's Jim Defede.
"I think so, we're kind of quiet, yes," said Susie Christie.
So why are there so few Asians in South Florida?
The low paying jobs that would attract an immigrant population go to new arrivals from Latin America and the high end science and technology jobs that also attract Asians to relocate aren't found in South Florida which relied instead on the low skilled tourism industry.
Tang said she hasn't seen the Asian community in the news this much since the brutal beating death of Luyen Phan Nguyen in Coral Springs in 1992.
The outpouring of support for Aaron's family touched many especially the response in the African American community.
Lawrence Sconiers said as an African American he felt a special kinship with the Vu family
"This happens so often to us that we just know what the pain must feel like. And I think that is why our support is so great to this family because we experience this week in and week out and it needs to stop,' said Sconiers.
With the Asian population growing, Tang is hopeful in the future the Asian community will be featured for something good and not because one of them has been horribly killed.
For more information on the nail salon shooting which killed 10-year old Aaron Vu, click here.
