His mission is to protect — and communicate.
With a growing population of native Chinese language speakers in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park and Bensonhurst neighborhoods — along with the surge of hate crimes against Asian people in New York and across the country in the past two years — Neighborhood Coordination Officer Joseph Aiello of the 72nd Precinct decided he needed to better relate to the people he serves.
So he decided to learn Mandarin.
“I felt like there was a boundary between the two cultures. We would respond to scenes where nobody spoke the language, so we’d have to wait and get a translator,” explained Aiello, 25. “I wanted to take the inꦇitiative to control a scene and communicate if anyone needs medical attention.”
Aiello, who has Italian heritage, knows some basic Spanish. His formeꦐr partner, Officer Kai Lee, was fluent in Mandarin.
“When I worked with him🍬, he would be able to have full conversations because he’s a native speaker, and I would just be 💝sitting there in the back, like, ‘I have no idea what’s going on,’” Aiello said.
Aiello isn’t receiving any formal training. Attending classes is too expensive, he said. Instead,ꦐ he listens to an audiobook while on patrol, practices small talk with neighborhood fishmongers, and orders traditional Chinese eats in Mandarin, including coconut buns and yuenyeung, which is a mix of coffee and milk tea, at local bakeries.
Mandarin is considered one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn because inflections and pronunciation are integral. Each word can have multiple meanings depending on the way it’s said.
“If I’m trying to say, ‘I am a police officer,’ it might come out as ‘I ten a police officer,’ because it’s the same word, just said slightly differently,” Aiello explained. “Mandarin is noౠt a Greek-based language, so it’s very difficult to grasp.”
Though still a novice, Aiello said the residents in༒ his precinct admire his efforts.
“Everyone is always a little shocked” when they hear him speaking Mandarin, he said. “Sometimes they laugh because I’m not the best, but they also like and appreciate it. As an NCO, it’s good to be able to show the community that I care.”
His effort is already paying off.
As Aiello walked through Brooklyn’s Chinatown on Wednesday, he responded to an incident involving a man with his arm in a sling who was punched and shoved to the ground. The victim lay on t🍒he sidewalk, shaking and talking in Mandarin to emergency responders, who couldn’t understand him. Aiello arrived, helped the man into the ambulance and was able to translate enough 🌊to identify witnesses and culprits.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across the country began seeing an uptick in hate crimes against Asians. In December, the NYPD reported a 361 percent increase in anti-Asian at🍃tacks in 2021 🧔compared to 2020.
So far in 2022, the city has seen the brutal killings of Christina Yuna Lee, who was stabbed more than 40 times in her Chinatown apartment in Manhattan, and Michelle Go, who was pushed in front of a🎶n on-coming subway at Times Squar༒e.