Editor’s note: If you or someone you know has been affected by gender-based violence, the Korean American Family Service Center’s 24-hour bilingual hotline is available at 718-460-3800.
In 2011, the Korean American Family Service Center (KAFSC) received a call about a woman with a stab wound in her back. At the hospital, her 5-year-old daughter had to interpret for her: first to the medical staff and then to the NYPD officers.
Jeehae Fischer, then a case manager and now the organization’s executive director, helped her find housing and enroll in KAFSC’s economic empowerment and job training programs. With help from donors, the organization also paid to treat the scar on her back.
As her time at KAFSC’s emergency shelter was ending, she told Fischer how she had first heard about the group: its annual silent march through the streets of Flushing.
“That was really powerful,” said Fischer.
For 29 years, KAFSC has led this march every October to observe Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Survivors, advocates and neighbors walk without making a sound to raise awareness of gender-based violence. The march begins at the 109th Precinct on Union Street and 37th Avenue and ends at the Flushing location of Queens Public Library on Main St.
State Sen. John Liu, who represents Flushing, told the crowd he remembered the early marches as small, at a time when many insisted gender-based violence “wasn’t an issue” in the community. Year after year, he said, KAFSC has built alliances with other organizations and the march kept going.
More than 200 volunteers, community organizers, elected officials and students marched this year under the event’s slogan, “Break the silence, end the violence,” to show Asian American communities in Queens that there is a place to turn to and that they are not alone. Flushing is home to one of the largest Asian communities in the city. About 75% of residents in its downtown area are Asian, according to 2020 census data from the New York City Department of City Planning.
“Gender-based violence is actually a taboo subject. Especially in AAPI immigrant communities, this is a topic that we don’t want to talk about, and we’re afraid of talking about. So, something like the silent march really raised the visibility of this issue,” Fischer told Epicenter NYC.
Community-based studies have found that up to 55% of Asian women report experiencing intimate physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. However, advocates say the true number is likely higher because of stigma, immigration fears and language barriers.
New York City Council Member Sandra Ung, whose district includes Flushing and worked as a domestic violence attorney, said she attends this march every year. She noted that many families still treat abuse as a private matter.
“[The march is] very symbolic of the fact that many people in our Asian American community feel silenced — that if they are in a situation of physical violence, mental, emotional violence, that they don’t have a way to reach out,” Ung said. “It’s always been seen as a family issue rather than a community issue.”
For the last three years, a domestic violence survivor from the Bronx has traveled to Queens to volunteer with KAFSC. Teace, who provided their professional name, said the march leaves them feeling fulfilled.
“Being here – seeing regular people, seeing kids from the schools around Queens, seeing all the volunteers from different parts of New York City, but also seeing the community, the diversity – it makes me feel like you always have a hand available,” said Teace. “There’s always someone there to help, and the most important thing is that people in situations know that.”
Advocates at the march said that work has grown more urgent. Mohammed Q. Amin, the founder and executive director of Caribbean Equality Project, said that survivors who are undocumented, especially those who are LGBTQ+, fear reporting their abuse because their abusers will threaten to call immigration officials and police.
“The challenge that many communities are facing right now is that undocumented survivors are being left behind in the fight to bring abusers to justice,” Amin said.
In 2025, KAFSC received more than 4,500 calls to its bilingual emergency hotline for survivors of gender-based violence. The organization also offers counseling, court advocacy, emergency shelter, transitional housing and programs for youth.
Three Korean drummers closed out Friday’s march, their beats “breaking the silence.” Several city agencies were in attendance, and elected officials, including State Sen. John Liu, Council Members Sandra Ung, Linda Lee and Shekar Krishnan, and state Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, spoke with the same message: the violence is happening, and survivors deserve somewhere safe to turn.
“Every year we do this, it makes a very strong statement, and it brings more resources as well as awareness and support for victims,” Liu said.
This article was produced in partnership with the Korean American Family Service Center.
