Olympic gymnast gold medalist Suni Lee said she was pepper sprayed, and had racist insults hurled at her and her friends during a recent trip to Los Angeles.
Lee told PopSugar in an interview she was waiting for a ride with a group of girlfriends, all of them of Asian descent, when a car drove by and the occupants yelled racist slurs like “ching chong,” and told Lee and her friends to “go back where you came from.” Lee then said one of the passengers in the car pepper sprayed her arm before the car left. The racist incident happened in October according to Lee.
Lee was born in the United States and is of Hmong descent. Her mother immigrated to the United States from Laos as a child. She is the first Hmong-American to compete in the Olympics.
“I didn’t do anything to them, and having the reputation, it’s so hard because I didn’t want to do anything that could get me in trouble. I just let it happen,” said Lee. “I was so mad but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off.”
Lee, 18, won a gold medal in the all-around event, a silver medal in the team competition and a bronze medal in the uneven bars in Tokyo.
Attacks against Asian-Americans have increased significantly in the United States over the past year. The coalition Stop AAPI Hate reported over 4,000 incidents in the first six months of 2021.
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