vicki nguyen is tracking this. there's a lot of xenophobic rhetoric that came out of the former white house. >> reporter: it is tough to say what motivates these heinous racial crimes. many people in the asian american community and advocates say the rhetoric, the calling it the china virus and kung flu, they feel it caused increase in hate incidents. there was a man in texas who approached a father and his two-year-old and six-year-old while shopping at a sam's club. he stabbed them and reportedly later told authorities he did it because he thought they were chinese, they weren't, and he thought they were spreading the coronavirus. so it is that kind of incident that prompted stop aapi to start recording. some of them don't rise to the level of a hate crime, per se, but they're isolating, demeaning, spat on, yelled at, denied services because you're asian. it is very critical that people report the crimes. it can be tough, asian american culture tends to be reticent about going to authorities. there are language b
