Pain for Asian youth didn't end with school assault
On March 16, ninth grader Lindi Liu was exiting a bathroom stall at South Philadelphia High when another boy kicked the door inward, bashing him in the head.
As Liu picked himself up off the floor, he could hear the boy laughing.
The incident lasted only seconds, but for Liu, a 16-year-old immigrant from China, the consequences have been profound.
His vision frequently turns blurry, to where he can't count fingers held in front of his face. He forgets conversations that occurred moments earlier, and sometimes struggles to identify everyday objects, like the chicken on his dinner plate. He gets sudden nose bleeds.
District spokesman Fernando Gallard said the school inquiry showed Liu was injured carelessly but unintentionally. The boy was kicking the doors of the stalls in turn, and did not realize Liu was there, he said.
"It seems it was not intended as an assault or intended to injure anyone," he said.
However, a student who was in the bathroom at the time contradicted that.
Dong Chen, 19, said the assailant kicked only one of five doors, the one with a broken lock, behind which stood Liu. Chen said when the door hit Liu's head, "we could hear it, it was so loud. Pow!"
Liu's parents are frightened for their son's health.
"I'm so upset," Liu's mother, Hui Qin Chen, said through a translator as she wiped tears from her eyes. "I don't know what to do."
On Dec. 3, South Philadelphia High generated national headlines when Asian students suffered a daylong series of assaults carried out by groups of mostly African American classmates. About 50 students staged a
As Liu picked himself up off the floor, he could hear the boy laughing.
The incident lasted only seconds, but for Liu, a 16-year-old immigrant from China, the consequences have been profound.
His vision frequently turns blurry, to where he can't count fingers held in front of his face. He forgets conversations that occurred moments earlier, and sometimes struggles to identify everyday objects, like the chicken on his dinner plate. He gets sudden nose bleeds.
District spokesman Fernando Gallard said the school inquiry showed Liu was injured carelessly but unintentionally. The boy was kicking the doors of the stalls in turn, and did not realize Liu was there, he said.
"It seems it was not intended as an assault or intended to injure anyone," he said.
However, a student who was in the bathroom at the time contradicted that.
Dong Chen, 19, said the assailant kicked only one of five doors, the one with a broken lock, behind which stood Liu. Chen said when the door hit Liu's head, "we could hear it, it was so loud. Pow!"
Liu's parents are frightened for their son's health.
"I'm so upset," Liu's mother, Hui Qin Chen, said through a translator as she wiped tears from her eyes. "I don't know what to do."
On Dec. 3, South Philadelphia High generated national headlines when Asian students suffered a daylong series of assaults carried out by groups of mostly African American classmates. About 50 students staged a