Sunday Read: Attacks against Asian Americans continue to rise, near 2000 incidents, says report

As of mid-May the number of attacks, harassment and abuse aimed at Asian Americans is approaching 2000 in the two months since a record of those incidents started being tracked.

While most of the incidents appear to be random spontaneous acts of hate, a few. of them, including the stabbing attacks against a Burmese American father and his two young children, were premeditated.

EXAMPLE #1: 

In multiple incidents, an elderly woman spitting out racial slurs at Asian Americans in a park in Torrance, Calif. resulted in a counterdemonstration when scores of AAPI made an appearance at the park to exercise.

Police identified the woman as Lena Hernandez, 56, last week and spoke to her Wednesday, but no arrests were made despite the videos of her tirades were viewed over a million times resulting in a public outcry.

"Based on the fact all three incidents are misdemeanor crimes and did not occur in the presence of an officer, Hernandez was not arrested at the time of the interview," police said. "The details of the interview will be submitted to the City of Torrance Prosecutors office."

Maintaining social distancing, scores of AAPI went to the Torrance Park to exercise.

Stop AAPI Hate, the leading aggregator of incidents against Asian Americans during the pandemic, has compiled a new report examining the rise in hate incidents against Asian Americans and the anti-Chinese rhetoric by political leaders. 

“We have seen time and again how dangerous it is when leaders scapegoat for political gain and use inflammatory rhetoric to stir up both interpersonal violence and racist policies. As we’ve seen throughout American history — from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to Japanese American wartime incarceration and most recently, immigration bans—Asians have been targeted with such vehement hate.” said Dr. Russell Jeung, chair of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. 

Last week, Stop AAPI Hate reported that as of May 13, incidents of anti-Asian American discrimination documented across the U.S. approached 1,900 since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Of those incidents, approximately 502 incidents specifically mentioned the terms “China” or “Chinese” during the incidents of discrimination. 

According to the report, it appears that there was a spike of incidents reported to the website after Donald Trump, after a respite of several weeks, has returned to using the incorrect term, “Chinese Virus” when referring to Covid-19 inflaming his followers.

Last Saturday at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump revived the term along with "Kung-Flu," is his speech in front of his cheering supporters.

There are a number of variables that could explain this correlation; nonetheless, Stop AAPI Hate contends that Trump's and the GOP’s anti-Chinese rhetoric have entrenched racism and xenophobia in the public’s perception of the coronavirus pandemic.

EXAMPLE #2: 

A man painting "Black Lives Matter" on his front retaining wall in San Francisco was approached by a white couple jogging by assumed that the Filipino American was  defacing someone else's hose in the upscale neighborhood. 

As it turns out, the man has been living at the address for 18 years, videotaped the "polite racism." Police responded to the white couple's 911 call and recognized the Filipino American as the legal resident, waved and left without any further incident.

Although the white couple later apologized after the video went viral.

A white woman cals 911 against a Filiipino American resident in a posh San Francisco neighborhood.

Recent news reports have drawn the conclusion that Trump and other political leaders are stirring up anti-Chinese sentiment as a means to distract from both their handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide protests against deeply entrenched racism and violence against Black Americans in law enforcement. 

“We condemn the racist, inciteful and violent rhetoric coming from the president and political leaders at the very top, who racialize tragedies to score political points and distract from their own mishandling of the pandemic," said Cynthia Choi, Co-Executive Director, Chinese for Affirmative Action.  

"This rhetoric continues to devastate and harm communities of color in America.” 

In turn, the president is currently pouring money into campaign ads against China. On April 17, the GOP sent a memo to campaigns stating that: 

1. China caused the virus by covering it up, 
2. Democrats are “soft on China”, and 
3. Republicans will push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading the virus. 

Other government leaders are picking up Trump’s racist language—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) have used similar language. 

Senator Martha McSally, up for re-election, recently said, “China is to blame for this pandemic and the death of thousands of Americans.” 

Most significantly, last month the president introduced a ban limiting Chinese students in the United States, raising concerns from a number of Asian American leaders. 

In its report on the 502 incidents of discrimination and harassment with a clear link to anti-Chinese sentiment, Stop AAPI Hate noted that the following trends emerged: 

• Virulent animosity towards Chinese, with 37.5% of these cases laced with profanity and verbal taunts 
• Scapegoating of China for the spread of Covid-19, with 31.7% of the perpetrators blaming China or Chinese people as the source of the disease 
• Anti-immigrant nationalism of the assailants as they demand that Asian Americans “go back to China” or view China as the enemy (20.3%) 
• Parroting of the term, “Chinese virus” to imply the implicit association between Covid-19 and China (17.5%) 
• Orientalist and racist depictions of China and Chinese people as dirty, diseased, and holding strange dietary habits (12.6%) 

Trump "continues to utilize white supremacist and nationalist views as a means of scapegoating his failures for political gain," said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, Executive Director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. 

"Unless we hold him accountable, the discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans will become deeply entrenched, cause unimaginable harm and suffering, and take decades to unwind.”