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Veronica Nou has skin so thick she calls herself a crab. One of six people in her family of 70 to survive the Khmer Rouge, and arriving in Australia from Cambodia as a refugee aged 11, she has endured racist attacks for decades.
The latest was when she found a placard in front of her western Sydney pharmacy on November 19 that read: “No Asian slum-city in St Marys.”
The message was signed off by a white supremacist party, which the Herald has chosen not to name.
Veronica Nou (centre) with members of the St Marys community preparing Christmas hampers for the food bank. They have rallied behind her amid anti-Asian attacks near her business. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Nou said she initially missed the sign because she entered her shop through the back.
“Then people started coming in saying, ‘Do you know what is taped up outside?’ And I was like, ‘No?’ I had no clue,” she said.
Seeing the sign, Nou was taken aback. “I’m not the only Asian in the area, but I’m probably the most obvious one,” she said.
The placard found in front of Nou’s St Marys pharmacy on November 19.
Multiple community members rushed over to help Nou remove the placard.
But, over the coming days, Nou’s customers came in to tell her they had seen other signs. Nou told them: “I don’t need to see them, thank you for letting me know. Just rip them down.”
And they did, furiously.
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“I really felt this strong wave of support from people who made the effort and the time to come in and check up on me,” Nou said.
“A lady came in and brought me a little bunch of flowers to say we stand by you, you’ve always been there for us, just ignore these people, they’re not part of our community, they’re not welcome around here.”
Police initially said they could not investigate the matter because the signs had been taken down.
That was until a local working in public health heard what happened to Nou and was so outraged by the police’s response that she contacted the local area command’s multicultural liaison officer, who met with Nou.
“He said, ‘Look, Veronica, it is a hate crime. We are taking these things seriously … do you want to come down to the police station now and do the report?’” Nou said. Two officers have since visited her pharmacy to collect the report and CCTV footage of the perpetrators.
“I’m really glad that it’s being taken on board,” Nou said. “I’m a little saddened by the fact that it took some additional prodding, and it wasn’t something that was automatically done the first time around, but I’m glad that it’s moving in the right direction now.”
CCTV footage shows two men of caucasian appearance at about 10.45pm on November 18 taping up anti-Asian signs to the pharmacy. One was dressed in all black, while the other wore a blue shirt with khaki shorts.
Police launched an investigation on December 10 into the offensive signage, alleging a person attached the sign to a pole at the intersection of Sydney Street and Brisbane Street.
A further report of a swastika inside an Aboriginal flag at the bottom of a Penrith City Council sign in the suburb was reported to and investigated by police. That investigation has been suspended, pending further information becoming available.
Nou said racist attacks don’t affect her nearly as much as they did when she was a teenager.
“Going through high school, that was when One Nation and Pauline Hanson and all of those groups really first were in the mainstream consciousness, saying all that stuff about us, like ‘Cabramatta is a ghetto’ and ‘Asians, they can’t assimilate’,” Nou said.
“I was a really angry person. I will admit that I had a lot of stress and anxiety. I did feel very targeted. I did feel unwelcome … I really did battle through a lot of that alone, especially because my parents had also been through this terrible, traumatic experience, and they were struggling to make a life for us.”
Nou said her career in healthcare helped change her perspective.
“When you get that understanding that you can do good, you look at other people who are commenting negatively or complaining, and you start to realise that actually, they’re the ones that are really nothing.”
Nou, owner of Morris Care and Advice Pharmacy in St Marys, said she was “saddened” by police’s slow response.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Having worked across all of Sydney, Nou said the St Marys and Oxley Park community was like no other.
Kathleen Konarew, a community member who has rallied behind Nou, said the pharmacist had her finger on the pulse of the community.
“She listens to this pulse and seeks help for those who need it most. I’m proud of everything she does and am honoured to know her,” Konarew said.
“Those humans who put the anti-Asian posters outside her pharmacy don’t know who they are tangling with – her bravery, steadfastness, sense of justice and her ‘dog with a bone’ attitude. They would wither in her shadow.”
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