can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. oh we're ready. ♪ captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, march 20: >> no more hate! >> obviously... >> sreenivasan: calls for unity against asian american hate crimes. in our signature segment: after a decade of war, the syrian refugee crisis intensifies. and, parenting during a pandemic. some tips to try at home. next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein

family. the sylvia a. and simon b. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. the peter g. peterson and joan ganz cooney fund. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america finaial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, vis www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> sreenivasan: good evening, and thank you for joining us. there is an outpouring of support from across the country this weekend for victims of tuesday's mass shooting in the atlanta area. in atlanta, mourners continue to leave flowerand notes at makeshift memorials outside the three spas where six asian american women and two others were killed. a gofundme page set up by one of the victim's sons has raised more than $2.3 million in just over a day. authorities are still investigating whether the alleged murderer-- a 21-year-old white man-- will be charged with a hate crime. but, the mass shooting and the recent increase of violence against members of the asian american community since the beginning of the pandemic has led to organized rallies and vigils around the country. >> sreenivasan: those events honoring the victims in atlanta and demanding action to stop anti-asian hate crimes are continuing this weekend. newshour weekend's laura fong reports from an event in

new york city that took place last night. >> no more hate! no more hate! >> reporter: as the sun set in new york city's union square last night, hundreds of people turned out for a vigil in the wake of tuesday's shooting at three atlanta-area spas that killed eight people. six of the victims were asian women. jo-ann yoo, executive director of the asian american federation, organized the vigil. >> we're here because we all know that our community deserves better. our workers deserve better. our mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters deserve better. we are here standing together because we are sad, we are angry, and we are exhausted by the roller coaster ride of emotions that we've all been dealing with today. >> reporter: the shooter has been charged with all eight murders, but local law enforcement says the motive is still under investigation, and has not yet ruled out hate crime charges. the mass shooting comes amidst an increase in the number of reported attacks on asians in the past year. a recent analysis ofolice data found a nearly 150% increase in anti-asian hate crimes in

16 major u.s. cities from 2019 to 2020. new york city had the biggest increase, up from just three incidents in 2019, to 28 last year. new york mayor bill de blasio blamed former president trump, who has referred to the coronavirus as the "china virus" and "kung flu." >> let's be clear-- a terrorism of fear that has been created and emanated from washington, d.c., and it was state-sponsored. and now look at the fear. look at the pain in our communities. we must confront it. >> reporter: vincent tang said he appreciated seeing the turnout from people outside asian american communities. >> i needed to see that we-- we have people outside of our community, or others within our community, but of a different color, to show their support as well. >> i feel heartbroken because, as a muslim american, i know what it feels like to come from a community that is targeted for

who you are. >> reporter: linda sarsour, co-founder of the intersectional social justice organization, until freedom, spoke out in solidarity and wants to see rhetoric backed up by action. >> asian american communities near-- need more than thoughts and prayers. they need action. they need investments in their organitions, in their institutions, in their communities, to ensure the safety and security of our asian communities. >> sreenivasan: for more on the rise in anti-asian american crimes, i spoke earlier with oscar, golden globe, emmy and grammy-nominated comedian and actress, margaret cho. margaret, what's been going through your mind, your heart, in the last few weeks and months as we've seen this escalation of crimes against asians? >> it's really wondering all about all of the incidents that are not reported. because i think, at least from my family, we have such a deep well of shame when it comes to racism and how much we don't want to upset other members of our family, of our community, by

sharing what happened. i think this practice comes out of p.t.s.d., from wartime, you know, and having all of these things occur in your family's history. and then, to bring it over here, looking for the american dream, for some kind of escape from all of the trauma that we experienced there, and then to have this new-- new terrible thing, racism, which my family experienced, such intense racism coming to san francisco from korea in 1964, that they've never discussed. and i think all of these incidents now bring up so much shame, so ch heartache, so much past trauma, that i'm sure this is so underreported. >> sreenivasan: do you think that this is part of why, perhaps, this community is perceived as more of a soft target?

i mean, there's a sort of perception maybe that is fueling this. >> it comes from the model minority myth, which-- i really reject the term "model minority," because it really denotes that we are in existence purely for the performative value for white people, and to pit us against other, quote-unquote, "minorities." it is really dehumanizing. i've noticed that they're attacking the elderly, the elderly women. older asian american women are being targeted, which puts me in a very high-target category. >> sreenivasan: the intersection between how we perceive asian women, sexuality and race. tie that together for us. >> it's ra and gender and identity. all of these things kind of go into whether or not this is a hate crime. obviously, what happened in atlanta is a hate crime. he was targeting asian women because of the way they made him feel. and also? the way that it was all framed

by the atlanta authorities was very disappointing, in that it was this huge effort to somehow humanize this murderer, who ad a bad day," who was trying to get some kind of relief for his sex addiction. so there's so much that we have to unpack when we're even looking at this incident from the perspective of the news that we're, like, allowing them to frame it as a bad day. it's way more than a bad day. >> sreenivasan: you know, you've got a podcast that starts to look at some of the kind of crimes in history that most of us have maybe forgotten about. >> well, our history as asian americans has really been erased from american history. we had a huge influence on the way this country was built, starting with the railroad th connected the east and the west to the north and the south. there have been numerous lynchings, numerous hate crimes against asians and asian americans, that we need to discuss. and so i'm doing a podcast

called "mortal minority," which is, we're trying to kill off the idea of "model minority" and also look back at the history of what we've experienced. >> sreenivasan: margaret cho, thank you so much for your time. >> tha you. >> sreenivasan: paris and parts of northern france entered into a partial lockdown today, in an effort to slow a third wave of covid-19 infections there. many nonessential shops are closed, but schools will remain open, and outdoor exercise is still allowed. the restrictions come as the country's confirmed infections have been rising. france recorded 35,000 cases on thursday, and i.c.u.s in many hospitals are reporting being overwhelmed. in pakistan, prime minister imran khan has tested positive for the coronavirus, two days after receiving his first shot of theaccine. khan is now in quarantine at his

home with a mild fever. a health official said the prime minister likely contracted the virus before the shot. and in japan, organizers of the tokyo olympics announced today that spectators from outside the country would not be allowed to attend this summer's games. about one million tickets have already been sold to foreigners, but officials said the risk was too great, and refunds would be offered. a long-dormant volcano in iceland is still spewing lava a day after it erupted in the country's southwest region. the volcano, located on the reykjanes peninsula could be seen from the outskirts of the capital reykjavik, about 20 miles away. no injuries have been reported, and local officials say the eruption, which is considered small, poses no danger to nearby communities. this is the first volcanic eruption on this peninsula in close to 800 years and comes after more than 40,000 small earthquakes shook the area in recent weeks.

>> sreenivasan: this week marked a decade of conflict in syria that began after soldiers fired on "arab spring" protesters, killing dozens and sparking a bloody civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and has destroyed cities and cultural sites. the conflict has also displaced more than half of the country's residents, and according to the u.n. high commissioner for refugees, two-thirds of those are women and children. special correspondent leila molana-allen reports from lebanon's bekaa valley, along the syrian border, where many refugees have lived in temporary shelters for years. >> reporter: on the 14th of march, 2011, lebanon's bekaa valley was a very different place. saadnayel was all fruit trees and rolling green fields then, not the white u.n. tents now such a distinguishing feature of

the horizon. maria assi, whose charity beyond rushed to help, was here as dozens-- then hundreds, then thousands-- of women and children began to tumble over the high mountains that mark lebanon's border with syria. residents welcomed them, giving them temporary shelter in homes, schools, mosques, even half- finished constructi sites. tell me about those early first few days? >> you know, for us it, like, maybe one month, maybe two months, maybe three. what we thought the maximum may be, like, 50,000, something like that. it wasn't, like, clear that they will stay for ten years. >> reporter: but as syria's protests and the resulting government crackdown raged on, morphing into a bloody civil war, stay they did. and many more would come. umm omar's family was one of the first to arrive. >> ( translated ): when we came here, we rented a house from the locals and we stayed with them. we thought we'd be here for a day or two, a week or two, a month, and then we'd go back. >> reporter: hoping to limit the

refugee presence here, lebanon's government never allowed formal camps to be built. despite having lived in them for years, refugees who live in tents aren't allowed to build anhing permanent. in 2019, the government decided tents breaking the rules must be torn down, and started with the border town of arsal. >> ( translated ): we saw the army coming with its trucks. it demolished our neighbor's house. we were afraid, so we emptied out of our house and let them do whatever they want. >> reporter: so, all this, she's telling me, used to be a stone wall up to the top, and they were forced to knock it all the way down. now all of this is just wood and tarpaulin. it's plastic, and she says it's very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. the lebanese government wants the refugees to go back to syria, and thousands have. but n.g.o.s have serious concerns over the conditions they'll find there. some return to find they no longer have houses, their former villages decimated. others report arbitrary arrests by the state, or forced military

conscription. after their tents were knocked down, some here decided to go back. but umm omar had already tried that a few years before, after things becamtoo tough in lebanon. she went back to qamishli with her daughters for two years, but it was even tougher there. there was no work, and her husband couldn't go back with them because he feared being forced into the army. eventually they snuck back into lebanon via a smuggling route. despite the instability they face, syrians have become a part of these communities. they live here, and they die here, too. this small, unofficial graveyard in the tribal village of faour holds the bodies of some 1,000 syrians. many of the graves here, paid for by local lebanese residents, are just a cole of feet long, holding the bodies of children who died of cold and lack of food in those early, chaotic days of the exodus. the u.n. estimates me than 6.5 million syrians have fled the country since the conflict began. more than a million came here to lebanon, and no one kns exactly how many are still here.

many of them have been living here for nearly a decade. but with little chance they'll get more rights or citizenship, they face a choice between attempting the dangerous journey back home, or staying here, living in limbo. we're just two miles from the border, but for the syrians buried here, this is the closest they'll ever get to going home. no one has an exact figure, because in 2015, the lebanese government told the u.n. to stop registering refugees. at that point, there were 1.2 million, but the government feared if the number went any higher, it would spark public uproar and create a volatile political situation in a country of only four million lebanese. the u.n. struck a deal-- they would stop registering refugees, but could still give them services. but life without that vita document is difficult. they don't have the right to be here, and can't apply for it. every time they go out, they risk being stopped at one of lebanon's many checkpoints and

arrested. and until recently, it was almost impossible to app for asylum in another country without being registered. they kept coming anyway. while there are now 865,000 registered still living in lebanon, the government estimates the real number is 1.5 million. and even those who are registered are strugglin in every settlement we went to, we met refugees who told us their u.n. benefits had recently been cut. this is mounira's family's registration certificate. they registered ven years ago, and they were getting help. it registers her, her husband and her four sons. but she says that help stopped. >> ( translated ): we don't even have enough for food. the u.n. no longer gives us food. how are we going to live? there's no allowance. the tent costs money, the generator does, electricity does, everything does. >> report: the u.n. says it simply cannot afford to support the vast number of people living here. >> we currently are only able to reach about 52% with food and monthly cash assistance.

we assess whetr there are now other refugees who are more in need, which is very difficult to explain to refugees, and we understand the frustration. >> reporter: the problem is, as lebanon's economy continues its slow-motion collapse, and food prices have tripled, nearly all refugees living in lebanon are now in desperate need. 90% now live in extreme poverty. the vast majority of refugees i've met over the years say lebanese civilians have been welcoming and gerous to them. but with more than half lebanon's own population now living in poverty too, they fear that generosity may be reaching its limit. as tensions between syrian the refugee crisis once dominated international headlines, but the longer they've been here and the more intractable the conflict has become, the less attention they've received. the u.n. says the situation is so bad, they've seen a huge increase in calls from refugees contemplating suicide. >> i think people think that refugees are the most vulnerable

when they first flee their country. the vast majority were not prepared to live years-- you know, a number of years in exile. and now they feel like they're stuck. so, not just their resources are being depleted, but their resilience is depleted. >> reporter: all the refugees we spoke to said they felt trapped and hopeless. their situation is more precarious now than it has ever been. >> ( translated ): there's no safety at the moment. even for the lebanese there's no security. so what is it like for us living in a country that isn't our own? >> reporter: umm omar can see syria from the small plastic window of the makeshift tent she had to rebuild with her bare hands. but it's not home anymore. and neither is here. as far as she's concerned, she no longer has one. >> sreenivasan: there is little doubt that parenting during a pandemic has been challenging, and even with schools starting

to reopen, the disruption to routines and structure has created new anxieties for parents and children alike. i recently spoke with clinical psychologist and parenting consultant becky kennedy, whose instagram page “dr. becky at home" has become a must-read for many families looking for advice. so, dr. kennedy, let's start is there a reason why children are having tantrums and outbursts, that we just haven't been used to with our own children? >> yes, because kids-- first of all, adults too-- we act how we feel. and if you think about this period we're in, there's just so much out-of-control feeling to go around. we're out of control. things that we thought were predictable, aren't. i usually go to school, i usually see my teachers, i always play this with this friend of recess. and then i come home, and one of my parents is there, both my parents are there, neither of my parents are there. we have a cadence, and now evy single part of that has changed.

kids don't have the same order and feeling of predictability. and what happens in their bodies is, their bodies feelut of control. and then the littlest thing, where the banana had an extra brown spot, right? or the apple, right, isn't red enough-- this happens in my it just spills over the bucket of "this did not go the way i wanted it to go. this did not go the way i thought it was going to go." and then we see meltdowns about these small things. but they really represent the release of all of this unpredictability and out-of- control feeling. >> sreenivasan: we are feeling that as parents, as human beings, around them all day long. and i guess maybe they're picking up something non-verbally, or maybe they're picking up the waves, the vibe. >> absolutely. our kids are experts at sensing their environment. it's actually part of how they've learned to survive. how we've all survived. kids have to notice what's different, what's the scene, what might be a threat.

our young are helpless and are dependent on us for survival for much longer than other animals. and so they really have to notice changes. we can do so much to help kids feel in control-- not by changing their life back to however, it was pre-covid-- by explaining all of the changes. so often, people say, "but my kid's so young, will they understand that?" 100%, no matter how old the kid is, i'll tell the parent, yes, they will. they'll alsonderstand that you're trying to explain something. they have to know, why are they not seeing grandma? why are they wearing masks? why is daddy working from home? why is mommy more upset? why are mommy and daddy arguing more? the more we actually talk to our kids about these things, then, in their environment, our kids can start to feel safe again. >> sreenivasan: how do you think the pandemic affects our relationship with just our coworkers, other folks and their children? we now see them in the back of zooms and running around and screaming and making-- you know, they've showed up.

and it's much harder to ignore that reality when you're thinking about makinworkplace policies or national policies. >> i've noticed kind of this relative binary there, and either it's made them, in some ways, more dedicated to work. they think "my work has become so much more humane." they understand. and then other people saying "it's as if my workplace has no idea that my whole life has changed, and that makes me less and less productive." how we feel in our family life has always impacted our productivity and our job. and so i think the workplaces that are really talking about that and bringing that into the conversations are actually doing a lot in the workplace. and it's really, really highlighted how important that is. so, i'd say a couple of things. to me, almost proactively, we can say to our kids every morning, you know what i've been thinking about?

"it's a really hard time to be a..." and then fill in the blank with their age. it's a really hard time to be a three-year-old. it's really hard to be a eight- year-old. >> sreenivasan: visit www.pbs.org/newshour for more >> sreenivasan: you know, i think parents are also concerned about our relationship with technology and how much of that is being absorbed by our kids. i'm just saying, how do i say to them, "well, you shouldn't be in front of screens so often," because they're going to turn around and say, what are you talking about, hypocrite? >> i guess i have a couple thoughts on that, and it kind of actually relates to feeling more in control in your environment. in general, kids do better with things that are said than left unsaid. so, when we're on our phones all the time, we think, "oh, i'm just going to do this to the side, i'm going to do this under the dinner table." they notice. and we want them to notice. i don't know anyone who says, "i hope my kid, when they get older, doesn't notice the things in the environment." we don't want to ain them not to notice. so just even saying, "hey, i know this is a disruption and my work is different now than it used to be, and i know that's

hard on you, and inow i say not a lot of screen time for you and you see me doing it. oh, what a mess. i'm going to finish this email and then i'm going to put my phone over there and at least be here for the next couple of minutes." that makes a huge difference, because it also gives the kid a label to digest an experience versus having to make sense of it themselves. i also think the other thing around our own screen time is, we really underestimate the power of however many minutes, two minutes, five minutes, 15 minutes, saying to your kid, i want to have special time with you, and what that means is no screens, but i promise not for me either. because you're right, we kind of tell ourselves and the people around us what's important by our attention. our attention tells us, or tells people, our values and what matters. and i think even 15 minutes, even if that feels too much for some parents two minutes, saying, my phone is away, it's a crazy day for me at work, but i want to have at least two minutes of dedicated, no screen time for either of us and have that together. kids really, really taken that high quality time.

>> sreenivasan: dr. becky kennedy, clinical psychologist, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks so much for having me. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. happy first day of spring. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy, and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine

foundation. the peter g. peterson and joan ganz cooney fund. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributionso your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs.

narrator: this program was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you, thank you. ♪ ♪ moon river ♪ ♪ wider than a mile ♪ announcer: ladies and gentlemen, andy williams. (audience cheering) ♪ you're just too good to be true ♪ ♪ can't take my eyes off of you ♪ ♪ you'd be like heaven to touch ♪ ♪ i wanna hold you so much ♪ ♪ it's keepin' track of the pack watching them watching back ♪ ♪ that makes the world go 'round ♪

♪ what's that sound ♪ ♪ each time you hear a loud collecte sigh, aah ♪ ♪ 'cause i can't help ♪ ♪ falling in love ♪ ♪ with you ♪ ♪ you ♪ ♪ ♪ guess there's no use in hangin' 'round ♪ ♪ guess i'll get dressed and do the town ♪ ♪ i'll find some crowded avenue ♪