Pew Survey: Is violence against Asian Americans becoming the new normal?

GRAPHIC BY RIOKA HAYAMA

ANALYSIS

One only has to look at the daily headlines online to know that Asian Americans continue to be under attack in the United States but the nation's general public is becoming increasingly numb to the attacks.

Just this past week: 

• Three women were shot in a Korean-owned hair salon in Dallas. The three Korean American victims were hospitalized.

• Armed men beat, robbed, and shot at two Chinese food delivery men in separate incidents in New York City. One of the victims. Zhiwen Yan, was fatally shot.

The recent attacks are part of a two year surge of anti-Asian incidents fueled by the use of anti-Chinese sentiment fueled by the racist language used by the Donald Trump administration when confronted with the coronavirus. Stop Asian Hate, a community-based organization that collects reports of anti-Asian incidents across the nation say they have recorded about 11,000 self-reported incidents since the beginning of the pandemic.

A majority of Asian Americans say violence against them is increasing, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Most of the respondents also worry about being threatened or attacked, with a third saying they have changed their daily routine because of these concerns.

The Pew survey found that about six-in-ten Asian adults (63%) say violence against Asian Americans is increasing, while 19% say there has not been much change and 8% say it is decreasing. This is down somewhat since last year, when 81% of Asian Americans said violence against them was increasing.

RELATED: New study says anti-Asian sentiment is growing

When asked about the roots of the racism, a majority of the respondents believe that the rising violence against Asian Americans can be blamed on Trump, racism, COVID-19 and its impact on the nation, and scapegoating and blaming Asian people for the pandemic.

The survey also found that across all major racial or ethnic groups, fewer adults now say violence against Asian Americans is increasing than did so in last year’s survey. 

In April 2021, 81% of Asian adults and about half or more of Black (59%), Hispanic (57%) and White (53%) adults said violence against Asian Americans was increasing.

This might indicate a growing numbness to the anti-Asian attacks; a normalization of the race-based incidents as the attacks move lower down in the media's judgement of what makes news, -usually based on the incidents'  unusualness or unnormal; ie. "dog bites man" is not news, but "man bites dog" leads the TV news, or makes the front page.

In the Pew report, Asian Americans -- more than other racial groups -- were found to be more dissatisfied with local officials responses to the anti-Asian violence. While 43% of Asian American adults say local officials are doing a very or somewhat bad job in this respect, smaller shares this perspective among Hispanic (22%), Black (16%) and White (15%) adults.

Majorities of Hispanic (60%), Black (65%) and White (74%) adults say they are not sure about the job their local officials are doing dealing with violence against Asian Americans, or that such violence is not an issue in their community. Again, the results suggests that the anti-Asian surge of hate incidents is not on most peoples' radar.

The survey was conducted last month (April), about a year after the fatal shooting of eight people, including six women of Asian descent, in the Atlanta area. Soon after the incident, President Joe Biden announced actions to address anti-Asian violence and signed into law a measure aiming to curb hate crimes.   

When asked to select among measures that might help prevent violence against Asian Americans, about half of Asian American adults (48%) say making laws against hate crimes stronger would be the most effective policy. Smaller shares of Asian Americans say the same about creating community watch programs (16%), increasing local police presence (14%) and electing more Asian Americans to public office (13%).

The results of this last question is reflective of the mixed attitudes by law enforcement agencies towards hate crimes. Although the FBI asks for hate crime statistics from local law enforcement, the results are most likely an undercount because there is not an established interpretation of what constitutes a hate crime. 

Even if an Asian American man delivering Chinese food is killed, it could not be labeled a hate crime unless there is the clear  motive of racism is evident.

In addition, there is a reluctance among many local law enforcement agencies to comply with the FBI request -- thus far, not a mandate, mind you -- for a number of reasons: it would reflect badly on the local agency or there is pressure from local business interests that the presence of hate crimes might present a poor image of their community. This apparent hesitancy to quantify hate crimes could be resolved if  the accurate reporting of hate crimes was a federal mandate from the Department of Justice tied to federal funding.

Apparently, something is at work beyond Donald Trump to explain the growing anti-Asian sentiment. In rocky economic times, frustrated Americans have often searched for a scapegoat to explain their poor situations -- Germans, Italians, Irish and Mexicans have taken their turn at being pilloried. And, of course, there has always been a spot reserved for Blacks since being forcibly brought to these shores as human chattel in the 17th century. 

With the retention of wealth and political power as their goal, there are interests in the U.S. who benefit from a divided society.  As various economic, religious, political and ethnic factions argue among themselves and begin to point fingers, the natural inclination is to attack the "other." At this juncture of American history, that "other" appears to be us -- the AANHPI peoples.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.