Survey: Half of all AANHPI have felt the sting of discrimination

STOP AAPI HATE

Half of all Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders say they have experienced discrimination according to a new national survey commissioned by Stop AAPI Hate.

“The scale at which Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have had their rights violated is shocking, and these findings should be a wake-up call for state and federal governments," said Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance.

"We need immediate interventions from policymakers and civil rights agencies to ensure our communities can live, work, learn, travel, shop and vote without being targeted because of who we are.” 

The survey deals a hard blow against the "model minority" stereotype that includes  the beliefs that working hard and suffering in silence leads to acceptance in US society. 

According to the report, more than 11,000 acts of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been reported to the national coalition Stop AAPI Hate since March 2020 when COVID-19 was recognized as a pandemic. 

The biased actions, which includes physical attacks, targets thousands of elders, parents, siblings, students, friends, and neighbors who are simply going about their everyday lives — commuting to work on public transit, taking their kids to school, shopping for groceries or running errands — only to suddenly face discrimination, bullying, harassment, shunning, or assault. Some of these acts of discrimination violate civil rights laws.

The findings also reveal that although millions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have experienced discrimination, only one in five reported it.

To better understand these troubling, and sometimes illegal, experiences with hate, Stop AAPI Hate commissioned the nonpartisan and independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct a nationally representative survey of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 

This landmark survey adds to community-generated data at Stop AAPI Hate and existing research to provide a more complete picture of the discrimination that impacts Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the changes needed to uphold the civil rights that protect us all.

“This study provides a comprehensive view of how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experience and respond to discrimination, and in particular civil rights violations,” said Vadim Volos, Vice President of Public Affairs and Media Research at NORC. 

“We discovered that few Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who experience discrimination reported the incident. This survey also demonstrates why many are reluctant to report, with lead causes cited being they felt reporting would not make much of a difference, feared unwanted attention for themselves or their families and they were unsure of where to go or what to do.”

 Among the key findings:

 1. Nearly half (49%) of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationwide have 49+51 experienced discrimination or unfair treatment that may be illegal.

• This discrimination, which is usually based on race or ethnicity, happens when they dine at restaurants, shop for groceries, and ride public transit, as students at school and employees at work, when renting and buying homes, when voting, and when interacting with government employees, including members of law enforcement or staff at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

2. Discrimination negatively affects the mental health and well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

• Half (50%) of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experiencing discrimination report feeling sad, stressed, anxious, or depressed as a result. 

• 45% say it negatively changed their sense of belonging to their school, workplace, or other community, and nearly a third (31%) say it negatively changed their behavior, such as switching schools, jobs, or where they shop.      

3. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders know they have rights and want accountability for unlawful discrimination, yet few who experienced what they believed to be a civil rights violation report it. 

• Only one in five (21%) Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who experienced discrimination said they reported it. 

• A majority (60%) of those who experienced discrimination and reported it say the reporting process was difficult. 

• Half (52%) of those who experienced discrimination but did not report it thought reporting would not make a difference.

 4. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders want a better understanding of how to enforce their rights and want new laws to protect their civil rights. 

• A majority (60%) of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders want to learn more about their rights and how to enforce them. 

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders trust community, advocacy, and civil rights organizations serving their respective communities (57%) and government agencies responsible for enforcing civil rights (54%) to learn more about their rights. 

• A majority (67%) believe new civil rights laws are needed.

“Without the support needed to stand up for their rights, AA and PI communities are paying an enormous price, forced to leave jobs, switch schools, change commutes and avoid stores,” said Candice Cho, Managing Director of Policy and Counsel for AAPI Equity Alliance and co-author of the report. “We must strengthen civil rights protections and enforcement to encourage and help communities of color take action against discrimination.”

Unfortunately, AANHPI victims of hate often feel compelled to make adjustments in their own lives even though they are not at fault. About a third (31%) of AANHPI victims whose rights were violated report changing their own behavior, such as switching schools, jobs or where they shop. Additionally, half (50%) of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experiencing discrimination indicate a negative impact on their mental health.

The new data suggest that there are ways to improve civil rights protections, provided policymakers, government agencies and others take immediate, deliberate action to protect the rights of AA and PI communities, including:

• Passing new laws to strengthen civil rights protections and enforcement. A majority (67%) of AAs and PIs believe new civil rights laws are needed.

• Investing in partnerships between government civil rights agencies and trusted community-based organizations serving AAs and PIs. These are the groups that AA and PI communities trust to report discrimination to and learn about their rights from.

• Providing multi-language outreach to AA and PI communities. Most (64%) AAs and PIs said they would feel more comfortable reporting a violation if they had a better understanding of their rights and how to enforce them.

“We need to do more to ensure Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders know that they don’t have to endure discrimination alone. There is a whole dedicated system that exists to protect their civil rights, but its impact is limited if people don’t know when or how to use it,” said Annie Lee, Managing Director of Policy at Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-author of the report. 

“Our elected officials, civil rights agencies and community-based groups must come together to focus on protecting our civil rights — starting with increased education and culturally competent outreach to our communities.” 

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.