The rally began with an acknowledgement of three Asian American men who were killed in Chicago last year. They were Weizhong Xiong, 38, and Huayi Bian, 37, who both were fatally shot in a Chinatown parking lot in February 2020, and Shuai Guan, 33, who was killed in a shooting in Bridgeport last December. Their deaths came during a year of skyrocketing crime in the city.