Incidents of hate against AAPI approaching 3,000 since the start of the pandemic

(Courtesy of Sungmin Kwon)

THE FACE OF HATE: A video posted to Facebook shows a man ranted anti-Asian remarks at a store in Bayside, Queens, NYC then attacked a South Korean man who confronted him 

There have been about 2,600 incidents of bias towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since Stop AAPI Hate has been collecting reports.

The data was collected between March 18 to August 5 to determine the extent of the rise of anti-Asian sentiment since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The self-reported incidents totaled 2,583 by Aug. 5.

“The thousands of incidents and trends in this report are difficult to face, and yet they are only the tip of the iceberg," said Russell Jeung, Ph.D., professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. "Many more incidents go unheard and unreported. 

"We may never be able to paint the full picture on the true gravity of how catastrophic this issue is, but the portrait of what we’re seeing in this data today should give rise to every American to take action against the racism running rampant through our country,” said Jeung.

The significant number of self-reported incidents demonstrates the widespread racism that AAPIs continue to experience amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The following trends and patterns emerged: 

• Verbal attacks are rampant. Seven out of ten incidents involved verbal harassment, which included racial slurs, name calling, and profanities. Physical assaults made up 9% of the incidents. 
• Civil rights are being violated. Potential civil rights violations, including workplace discrimination and being barred from establishments and transportation, comprised 8% of the incidents. 
• Incidents at businesses are prevalent. Over 38% of the hate incidents took place at places of business, followed by public streets (20%) and public parks (11%). Online incidents comprised 11% of the incidents. 
• There are gender disparities in incidents. Women reported discrimination 2.4 times more than men. 
• Discrimination affects people of all ages. One in seven of those reporting were young people under 20 years old (14%); elderly made up 7.5% of the respondents. 
• A majority of reports in California. California accounts for over 46% of the incidents, followed by NY (14%); WA (4%); IL (3%) and TX (3%).

“Taking action to address anti-Asian American racism is not a partisan issue. As the 2020 election looms over us, we must hold all candidates across the aisle accountable to take an overt stance on mitigating the harm against AAPIs in the U.S.,” said Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. 

“We’re already dealing with the fallout of damaging rhetoric and policies against our communities from the Trump administration, from plans to limit Chinese students in U.S. schools to his repeated use of racially-charged terms like ‘Chinese virus’ and ‘Kung Flu.’ Every leader vying to represent our communities must answer to this critical issue of our time.” 

Some first-hand accounts from Stop AAPI Hate’s latest report include: 

• “I’m a healthcare worker. I saw a maskless man sit across from me on the subway. I moved to the other side of the train car and he followed. He spat and coughed on the subway while yelling racial slurs. No one stood up for me.” (New York, NY) 
• “A white woman in an SUV mounted the curb to try and run over one of my family members taking a walk for exercise. This woman saw that they were Asian, pulled over, started yelling and spitting at us, drove off, then turned around and tried to run them over with her car and even mounted the sidewalk to chase them.” (Thousand Oaks, CA) 
• “I was in line at the pharmacy when a woman approached me and sprayed Lysol all over me. She was yelling out, ‘You’re the infection. Go home. We don’t want you here!’ I was in shock and cried as I left the building. No one came to my help.” (Marietta, GA) Facing this upsurge in hate incidents. 

One of reasons of for the rise in anti-Asian sentiment is Donald Trump's continuing use of "China virus" or "Wuhan virus" in referring to COVID-19. That rhetoric plus the increasingly tense relations with China contribute to the feeling by some to express their anti-Asian beliefs.

“Taking action to address anti-Asian American racism is not a partisan issue. As the 2020 election looms over us, we must hold all candidates across the aisle accountable to take an overt stance on mitigating the harm against AAPIs in the U.S.,” said Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. 

“The time for leaders to step up and address anti-Asian American racism and hate is long overdue. Unless we all take collective action to address the widespread racism against AAPIs amid the pandemic, it will have generational and devastating impacts on the lives of millions in our country that will take decades to reverse,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council.