Report: COVID-19's heavy impact on Asian American workers and businesses

Asian-owned businesses hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic continue to suffer.

The devastating human toll of COVID-19 on Filipino nurses — who made up a staggering majority of healthcare worker deaths early in the pandemic — exposed just how vulnerable Asian American communities were on the front lines. The resulting crisis was just as wide-ranging and severe across the broader AANHPI labor force, according to a new report.

“An important question to consider for the future is whether these disparities will continue as the economy reopens and be exacerbated by the apparent increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the US,” said Paul Ong, co-author of the report and director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

In an earlir report taken in 2021, Ong explained that because Asian-owned businesses tend to be in sectors that were the most impacted — such as food service, hospitality and retail — many of them didn’t have the money to keep their businesses open when profits took a nosedive.

        RELATED: Even as they saved lives, Filipino nurses faced racism

Analyzing labor data from California and New York between March and May 2020, researchers found that AANHPI workers and businesses suffered disproportionate job losses and small business closures compared to their white counterparts, according to report released earlier this month  from the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and Ong & Associates.

“The racism throughout the pandemic also led people to avoid businesses in Asian neighborhoods altogether,” Ong added. 

Key findings

Widening Joblessness Gap: Prior to the pandemic, unemployment rates for Asian Americans and white workers were nearly identical. By May 2020, Asian American unemployment jumped to 15% (with overall joblessness at 21%), compared to 12% unemployment and 16% joblessness for white workers.

Overrepresentation in Jobless Claims: Asian Americans accounted for 16% of California’s workforce before shutdowns but made up 19% of initial unemployment claims. In New York, despite making up 9% of the workforce, they filed 14% of claims by mid-April.

Severe Impact on Low-Income Workers: Disadvantaged workers bore the brunt of the downturn—83% of Asian American labor force members with a high school education or less filed unemployment claims in California, compared to 37% for non-Asian workers with equivalent education levels.

Concentration in Vulnerable Sectors: Nearly 1 in 4 Asian American workers are concentrated in hospitality, retail, and personal services. In April 2020, Asian American unemployment reached 39% in hospitality and 40% in personal services/repair shops.

Small Business Closures: Between February and April 2020, an estimated 233,000 Asian American small businesses closed — a 28% drop — compared to a 17% decline among white-owned small businesses.

View from the edge

Streets in San Francisco's Chinatown were
empty during the COVID pandemic.

Since the worse of the pandemic appears to be over, the Asian American community is still struggling to overcome the financial and societal hurdles that came about because of the pandemic and the current anti-Asian sentiment fueled by Donald Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric and harsh immigration policy targeting a wide specturm of immigrants and uS citizens.

Lead researcher Ong noted that rising anti-Asian sentiment could worsen these  disparities as the still-struggling economy reopens amid questionable federal trade, economic policies and federal assistance cuts.

Among the report's recommendations:

• Enact federal policy to extend unemployment benefits and small business assistance, such as the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance program from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

• Enact additional state policies that provide benefits to marginalized populations least likely to receive unemployment benefits through the CARES Act.

• Enact additional policies to assist small businesses, including the so-called resiliency funds established by some local governments.

• Increase efforts to ensure marginalized populations take advantage of governmental, private and philanthropic resources to help people weather the financial hardships of COVID-19.

• Enact federal and state polices and fund programs to equip economically displaced people with job skills that are marketable during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

According to reports from organizations like National Nurses United, during the height of the pandemic, roughly 1 in 3 registered nurse fatalities from COVID-19 were of Filipino origin. That dramatic figure symbolizes the extent of the pandmic's impact beyond the hospital wards into the businesses and homes of the AANHPI communities.

“We need to invest in all workers to ensure a robust recovery,” the researchers write.

To prevent long-term economic damage, the report's authors urge federal and state lawmakers to extend emergency unemployment benefits, fund local small business resiliency grants, and expand job retraining programs targeting economically displaced service workers.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

Hate crimes increase in US, but those targeting Asian Americans decreased in 2022, says FBI

Less anti-Asian rhetoric from the nation's leaders have had a beneficial effect in lowering the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans, as evidenced by the latest Hate Crimes Report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Anti-Asian hate crimes decreased 33% from 2021 to 2022, according to FBI's latest report released last week. The drop reverses the surge of anti-Asian crimes that since 2020, when the pandemic began and the Donald Trump administration began using using anti-Chinese slurs in blaming COVID-19 on China. Because the nation's supposed leader used racist rhetoric in referring to the pandemic, that gave those with racist tendencies to unleash their hidden racism against AANHPI.

Despite the drop in reported hate crimes, Asian American communities remain worried that the trend could reverse quickly depending on deepening tensions between the US and North Korea and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).

“Anti-Asian hate crimes … are often tied to national security or other kinds of U.S. foreign policy that heightened attention to Asian Americans in the U.S.,” Janelle Wong, senior researcher at the data and civic engagement nonprofit AAPI Data,tells NBC.

“We will expect them to go up again at some point, depending on what the national and international context is and the degree to which places in Asia are cast as a threat to the US.”

Despite the lower number of anti-Asian hate crimes, members of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities caution that the FBI data underreports the number of attacks against AANHPI.

One reason for the report is flawed is that law enforcement agencies are not required under the law to report hate crime data to the FBI. Only 14,660 of 18,888 participating law enforcement agencies in the country reported their data to the FBI with a population coverage of 91.7% submitting incident reports. In addition, many crimes are simply never reported to police, says the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate incidents throughout the nation.

Though 46 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws, the laws vary widely. In addition, each jurisdiction has its own definition what constitutes a hate crime. Many of the smaller law agencies tend to underreport hate incidents because they don't want to taint the reputation of their community.

Nevertheless, the decrease from 746 to 499 hate incidents does suggest a trend. is attributed to several factors, including diminished opportunity for Covid-related scapegoating, less inflammatory rhetoric from leaders and reporting fatigue, experts say. But not every group saw similar drops.

These reports involved 11,634 criminal incidents and 13,337 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were over 11,000 single-bias hate crime incidents involving 13,278 victims and 346 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 433 victims. In 2022, the top three bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, and sexual-orientation.

The top bias types within those bias categories by volume of reported hate crime incidents is anti-Black for race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, anti-Jewish for religious bias, and anti-Gay (male) for sexual-orientation bias.

The FBI report only counts those attacks that meet the legal definition of a hate crime, which is a minority of hate incidents that occur against AANHPI. It does not include the verbal and physical harassment, bullying and micro-aggressions that AANHPI have to endure almost daily.

Groups that monitor hate incidents note the increase of attacks against Muslims and South Asians since the start of the Israeli-Hamas War on Oct. 7.

The FBI reports that it “has seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions” and said that “recent events have increased the possibility of potential attacks against individuals and institutions in response to developments in the Middle East.”

Jews, Palestinians and Muslims in the US told CNN they’re experiencing a growing fear about bigotry and hatred in the wake of the Hamas attack.

The Anti Defamation Lague reported to CNN that over 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-23, almost a five-fold increase over the same period in 2022.

At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is collecting data and has seen an uptick in reports, but did not have numbers to release. “We haven’t had time to do tallies, but we are responding to incidents around the clock,” said CAIR Research Director Corey Saylor.

In a memo to law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C., the Department of Homeland Security warned that the "escalations in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas almost certainly will increase the threat of terrorism and targeted violence" in the US.

Already, in addition to vandalism and other assorted aggressions against mosques and synagogues, the Middle East conflict likely motivated the stabbing death of a 6-year old Palestinian American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, in hicago and what appears to be the assassination of Samantha Woll, a Jewish American leader in Detroit.

"Last year’s data also shows that overall hate crime levels remained steady, and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans fell by 38% after I signed legislation to combat anti-Asian hate," said President Biden. "But there’s more to do when it comes to ending hate-fueled violence. That means coming together and speaking out against hate and bigotry in all its forms. All Americans deserve to live their lives with dignity, respect, and safety.

"The data is a reminder that hate never goes away, it only hides," said Biden in response to the FBI report. "Any hate crime is a stain on the soul of America."

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

Anti-Asian hate's impact on the AANHPI communities is greater than we think

About 1 in 5 Asian Americans in California worried "all the time" or "often" about being a victim of a hate crime, with worries especially high among Filipino Americans, according to a new study.

The AAPI Data Project at UC Riverside and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) recently released a comprehensive report revealing economic hardships, negative health outcomes and a rise in hate incidents experienced by Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"California's investment to increase the available data on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities is essential in improving public understanding of the needs, barriers, and challenges that AA and NHPI communities face," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, professor of public policy at UC Riverside and founder of AAPI Data. "We hope that policymakers as well as those in charge of policy implementation will use the findings and recommendations in this report to create better programs and services that address the diversity in needs and challenges faced by AA and NHPI communities in California."

One of the key findings of the study, the Post-Pandemic Agenda for Community Well-being among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Californiais that information about access to heath and mental health needs is not getting to the AANHPI communities resulting in poor medical outcomes and high suicide rates

Using data from UCLA CHPR's 2018–2021 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), as well as the 2019 and 2021 American Community Survey, the study found that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders experienced difficulties accessing health and mental health services, as well as affordable and quality housing, education, and food.

The impact was vast in health outcomes, with about 3 in 10 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in California reported difficulties in accessing health services, and 1 in 4 experiencing difficulties in accessing mental health services. Cost was the most common reason for difficulty in accessing health services, with 7 in 10 experiencing this financial burden, however a lack of knowledge about available options was the top reason for difficulty in accessing mental health services.

The Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have grappled with a rise in violence in recent years—from the anti-Asian hate incidents that occurred during the pandemic to the recent back-to-back mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay. 

The 2021 CHIS, which added questions on attitudes about gun violence, found that Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders reported the highest proportions of concern about gun violence: 66% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and 65% of Asian Americans said they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" about gun violence, more than double the percentage of white adults (30%).

Economic hardship was another overwhelming issue for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in California. Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, each saw higher poverty rates in 2021, compared to 2019. According to the study, more than half of respondents indicated that they had difficulty accessing high-quality or affordable housing due to financial cost and 36% said they had difficulty accessing quality or affordable food.

"After studying the emotional and economic impacts brought on by the pandemic over the last three years, it's clear there is a significant burden on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in California," Ninez A. Ponce, UCLA CHPR director and CHIS principal investigator, said. "These findings suggest an urgent need to address the gaps in access to health care, which have gotten perpetually worse as the pandemic continues to take a toll on this community."

Another major cause for concern is the ongoing issue of hate incidents and discrimination against the Asian American community. Data show 1 in 4 Asian Americans had ever been a victim of a hate crime or incident in their lifetime, and 1 in 5 said they worried all the time or often about being a victim.

To address racial injustices and economic inequities within the state's system, researchers suggest that policymakers act against such prejudices by creating a more equitable framework for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders across the state.

Recommendations include a focus on addressing inequities across the mental health system, improving awareness and access to public and government programs, investing in culturally competent care and services, increasing partnerships between state and community-based organizations, building additional language access, and widening access to data on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.

The report is part of a series of reports by AAPI Data and the California Health Interview Survey focused on measuring the social, economic, and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The goal is to highlight the gaps in access to health, mental health, and social services for those communities.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, our community faced not only a major increase in hate crimes and incidents, but struggled financially and could not access care," said California Assemblymember Phil Ting, chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.

"When I championed the API Equity Budget in 2021, we knew that the AAPI Data Project needed resourced to research our community's necessities. The recommendations from this report help us understand the hardships that the API community is facing, and helps us identify service gaps in order for the government and our community partners to address these needs."

Other highlights of the report:

HEALTH

• Between 2019 and 2021, Hispanics/Latinos and Asian Americans had statistically significant increases in reports of delays in health care due to system and provider barriers.
  
• By 2021, Asian Americans and NHPIs were more likely than Whites to rely on community-based health care. 
• About 3 in 10 Asian Americans in California reported difficulties in accessing health services, and cited financial cost, lack of awareness about options, lack of insurance, and limited English proficiency as the most salient challenges.
  
• Doctors, government health agencies, and friends/family remain by far the most trusted sources of medical information for Asian Americans. Only 37 percent of Asian Americans trusted social media apps for medical information.​
  

MENTAL HEALTH AND COMMUNITY WELL-BEING: 

• Suicide ideation increased between 2018/19 and 2020/21 for Asian Americans, as for many other groups, with increases especially pronounced among non-U.S. citizens.
  
• Yet the share of Asian Americans receiving mental health services did not change before and after the onset of COVID. 
  
• Major barriers for finding mental health services include lack of knowledge about available options, financial cost, lack of insurance, and limited options in their neighborhood. 
  
• Fear of gun violence is a significant contributor to community anxiety and the lack of well-being.
  
• Even before the 2023 shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California, Asian Americans and NHPIs were the groups most worried about becoming a victim of gun violence.
  

EXPERIENCES WITH HATE 

• One in 4 Asian Americans in California reported having ever experienced a hate crime or hate incident, with Southeast Asians reporting the highest levels of experiences with hate. 
  
• Among those who had ever experienced hate crimes or hate incidents, most had done so before 2020.
  
• Asian American men were significantly more likely than Asian American women to be threatened or harassed (16% vs.10%, respectively) and also more likely to have been mocked or had offensive physical gestures made towards them (15% vs. 9 %, respectively).
  
• About 1 in 5 Asian Americans in California worried "all the time" or "often" about being a victim of a hate crime, with worries especially high among Filipino Americans.
  

A mural in New York City.

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS

• Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders all saw higher poverty rates, and lower labor force participation rates, in 2021 than in 2019.
  
• The labor force participation rate for Indian Americans increased slightly between 2019 and 2021, while Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans saw statistically significant decreases.
  
• The share of NHPI homeowners with mortgages who were burdened with housing cost (spending 30% or more of household income on housing) increased from 35% to 45% between 2019 to 2021.
  
• Asian Americans in California report relying mostly on friends or family members for assistance in accessing quality or affordable housing, with government agencies a distant second.
  
• About 2 in 5 Asian American respondents indicated that they had difficulty finding quality or affordable education, with financial cost as the most common reason across groups.
  

"AAPI Data's report, Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Health, Mental Health, and Social Services for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders shines a bright light on the alarming health disparities of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities and point to the social determinants of health and mental health that we, California, must collectively and immediately address," said Nkauj Iab Yang, director of the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs.

"Now, more than ever, we must work together to change state policies and programs to meet the needs of the AANHPI communities. This is life or death, and we cannot afford any more lives taken prematurely in order to take action."

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

While many AANHPI are recovering from pandemic-caused economy but suffering lingers

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders hit hard by the pandemic and the coronavirus-caused recession have largely recovered but many are still hurting, says a newly released report.

In 2021, the AANHPI poverty rate dropped by nearly 22%, however, the wide disparities within the AANHPI community revealed by the report shows the need for more disaggregated data to fully comprehend their contributions to the US economy.

The report was released May 27 as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month drew to a close. It was commissioned by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. The report provides a snapshot of the current economic state of the AANHPI community and their contributions to the American economy.

"We cannot overlook the ways this community continues to face barriers to economic prosperity — which were magnified by the coronavirus pandemic — and the ways inadequate aggregate data mask stark disparities in income, poverty, education and access to health insurance," said JEC Chair Rep. Don Beyer, D-VA. "The coronavirus pandemic shed new light on the ways in which economic inequality and discrimination compound the disadvantages of many Americans, and these disparities made its impact even worse."

AANHPI, which makes up about 7% of the American population, is extremely diverse and includes approximately 50 ethnic groups speaking over 100 languages. This fact sheet disaggregates measures of economic well-being, showing the full diversity of the AANHPI community’s economic state and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Among the report’s key findings:

• Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have the highest level of income inequality of any racial group, ranging from median family incomes that are nearly twice the national median to incomes that are significantly below it.

• Poverty rates vary widely across AANHPI households: The poverty rate is 11-percent for Asian Americans and 13-percent for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, but disaggregated data show poverty rates range from six-percent for Filipino Americans to 31-percent for Micronesian Americans not from Guam.

• Aggregate statistics on educational achievement obscure the low rates of college graduation for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders: While 79% of Taiwanese Americans and 75% of Indian American adults have bachelor’s degrees, just 17% of Laotian Americans and 24% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have a four-year college degree.

• Many AANHPI groups have fully recovered the jobs lost during the pandemic,

• High AANHPI median family income masks some groups’ economic insecurity.

• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have higher rates of poverty, while Asian American poverty rates vary widely.

• Asian Americans’ high level of educational achievement obscures wide-ranging disparities and low rates of college graduation for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

• Despite high aggregate rates of health insurance coverage, the AANHPI community was disproportionately affected by the pandemic when controlling for socioeconomic factors.

Rep. Judy Chu, CAPAC chair, says the findings show "the importance of data disaggregation and that there is still work needed to be done to address disparities among AANHPI communities across the nation. I look forward to continuing CAPAC’s work alongside JEC, ensuring we are on the right track trending toward economic recovery and taking steps to mitigate inequities.”

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

Asian American mothers struggling with multiple crises of pandemic, anti-Asian hate and caregiving

By Miliann Kang and C.N. Le

REPRINTED FROM THE CONVERSATION

In memory of the Atlanta massage spas shootings on March 16, 2021, that killed eight people, including six Asian women, communities around the country gathered a year later to mourn and demand responses to violence against Asian Americans, especially women who work in service industries.

In addition to being exposed to risks at their workplaces, Asian American women who care for children and elders are especially vulnerable to anti-Asian violence. As sociologists and scholars of gender, race, immigration and Asian American studies, we focus on the particular challenges facing Asian American mothers.

Though they face challenges similar to those faced by other mothers confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American women have the added burden of being seen as the cause of the virus and being disproportionately targeted by hostility and violence that such misconceptions bring on.

Spike in assaults

From March 2020 to December 2021, StopAAPIHate, a joint project between the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University and two Asian American community organizations, collected reports of almost 11,000 incidents in the U.S. of anti-Asian hate, ranging from spitting to verbal abuse to physical attacks. Women reported 62% of these incidents.

In a separate survey of 2,414 female Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders conducted in January and February 2022 by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, a national organization founded in 1998 to advocate for women and girls in that community, results show that 74% of respondents reported personally experiencing racism, discrimination or both in the prior 12 months.

The spike in violence has been reflected in news headlines that have appeared since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020.

National Public Radio proclaimed, “There’s been an alarming spike in violence against women of Asian descent in the U.S.” NBC also reported, “‘Nowhere is safe’: Asian women reflect on brutal New York City killings.”

Over the same time period, other news headlines reflected the toll the pandemic took on mothers. A New York Times headline, for instance, read “The Primal Scream: America’s Mothers Are in Crisis.” Another in USA Today read “We sacrificed working moms to survive the pandemic.”

For Asian American mothers, what appear to be distinct headlines are inextricably connected in daily decisions on whether to send children to school, accompany parents on the subway, go to work or simply leave the house.

Heightened risks

“There’s just a real sense of fear,” said Jeanie Tung, director of business development and workforce partnerships at Henry Street Settlement. The organization, located near New York City’s Chinatown, serves Manhattan’s Lower East Side residents and other New Yorkers through social services, arts and health care programs.

During an interview, Tung said she has heard from Asian American mothers that their concerns go beyond the lack of child care. “It’s more like, ‘I don’t want to work because I don’t want to risk my life,’” said Tung.

The shootings in Atlanta-area massage spas exposed the heightened vulnerabilities of Asian American women who work in high-contact service industries, such as nail salons, restaurants, delivery, health care, caregiving, hospitality and, especially, massage and sex work.

Yin Q is an organizer for Red Canary Song, a coalition of Asian massage and sex workers in the U.S., with programs also in Toronto, Paris and Hong Kong. “If you look at the rise in violence across the board,” she said in an interview, “then it’s magnified for massage and sex workers. And then you add to that, being a mother and a caregiver.”

She explained that social stigma and criminalization of their work increase their risks of violence. Their work also prevents them from being seen as devoted mothers and responsible caregivers.

John Chin, professor of urban planning at Hunter College, co-authored an National Institutes of Health-funded study that interviewed over 100 Korean and Chinese women working in illicit massage parlors.

“Can we as a community accept that a person might be both a sex worker and a loving mother dedicated to raising her children?” he asked.

Various initiatives have been proposed to address how motherhood negatively impacts earnings, known as the motherhood penalty, and how this penalty has been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Measures such as flexibility to work from home, child care subsidies, paid family leave and other programs in the Biden administration’s American Families Plan are important.

Unique challenges

On top of negotiating vaccines, mask mandates, online and in-person learning while trying to sustain their own careers and mental health, Asian American mothers are in a state of hypervigilance against racist attacks.

Immediate needs include increased personal safety. Measures such as providing alarms, rides and hotlines, as well as offering classes in self-defense and bystander training, have proved effective.

A report by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum goes even further. “The State of Safety for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women in the U.S” urged elected officials to spend more money on community-based organizations that offer language-accessible services to help Asian Americans find employment, housing and health care.

CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities has been working since 1986 to address various forms of anti-Asian violence – from street assaults to police brutality to landlord harassment and housing displacement. Its main approach is developing leadership within Asian immigrant communities, including among tenants, workers and youths.

Queer and trans Asian American mothers, and those raising children who identify as queer and trans, are demanding visibility and responses to the particular challenges they face, including higher risk for intimate partner and family violence.

Asian Americans are a diverse group, as are Asian American mothers. While some Asian American groups have called for more policing, others disagree and call for community-based approaches to increase safety.

Julie Won, one of the first Korean Americans to serve on the New York City Council, told The New York Times in March 2022 that tougher policing is not the answer and more attention needs to be paid to “prevention and long-term solutions to what leads to these violent crimes.”
Education remains key

Asian American studies scholars have sought to teach the history of anti-Asian racism and specifically the roots of racialized sexualization of Asian American women.

But backlash against teaching critical race theory underscores the need to expand curriculum on Asian American history and contemporary issues facing Asian Americans beyond the university to K-12 public education. Such initiatives have been proposed in several U.S. states and have become law in Illinois and New Jersey.

Efforts to support and protect Asian Americans, particularly mothers, require approaches that both respond to the rise in anti-Asian violence at this very troubling moment and recognize the long gendered and racial histories of anti-Asian exclusion.

About the authors:

New York state awards $10 million to AAPI community to combat virus and hate

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announces $10 million to the Asian American community.

The State of New York is awarding $10 million to Asian American organizations that were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and surge of anti-Asian hate. It is the largest investment in the Asian American community in New York history.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on so many vulnerable and marginalized communities across New York State,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul Feb. 20. “The Asian American community was especially hard hit, not only by the virus, but by an increase in hate and violent crimes."

"With this $10 million in funding, we are sending a strong message that hate has no home here, and we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our sisters and brothers in the Asian American community. My administration is laser focused on continuing to help communities that have for too long been forgotten, not only as we recover from this pandemic, but for years to come,” said Hochul.

The funding, allocated in the FY 2021-22 budget, will be distributed to community-based groups through the Asian American Federation (AAF), the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF), and the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), as well as other organizations. 

There will be a focus on community programs and providers that bring services and supportive programs directly to New York's Asian American communities. 

 "With the tragedies that our community has experienced since the start of the pandemic, and painfully so over the last few months, many Asian Americans are fearful for their own lives when stepping out of their homes<" said Executive Director of the Asian American Federation Jo-Ann Yoo.

"Governor Hochul’s leadership shows that our voice is not going unheard as we ask for support to overcome this trauma.”

The award was announced as New York's Asian American community was still reeling from the brutal fatal stabbing of Christina Lee and Michelle Go's death from being pushed into the path of an oncoming subway train.

Hate attacks against New York City's AAPI have risen 361% last year, according to NYPD data. 

The Asian American Federation (AAF) will receive a total of $6.8 million in funding intended to reinforce the community support offered by a network of organizations that have witnessed a sudden increase in demand for services due to the pandemic. AAF will direct the funding to 59 community organizations listed below that provide direct services, case management, and mental health support that serve Asian New Yorkers throughout New York State. 

In addition, the New York State Assembly is directing $1.4 million in Legislative aid to another 40 organizations that serve a wide array of communities in New York. 

“The AAPI community has been the target of relentless hatred, bigotry, and violence for the last two years, and we desperately need resources that would address the root cause of these attacks," said New York state Sen. John Liu.

"While we are grateful to see the implementation of last year’s $10 million budget allocation, the siege against Asian Americans continues unabated, as does our need for additional resources," said Liu. "We must address a range of needs such as community safety, services for youth and senior citizens, mental health support for Asian New Yorkers, and the implementation of AAPI curriculum in public schools.”

The following organizations will receive aid from AAF:

• A Place for Kids
• Academy of Medical & Public Health Services
• Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice
• Arab American Association of New York
• Arab-American Family Support Center
• Asian American Arts Alliance
• Asian American Community Empowerment
• Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
• Asian Americans for Equality
• Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs
• Bridges From Borders
• Brooklyn Chinese-American Association
• Brooklyn Community Improvement Association
• Burmese Community Services
• Caribbean Equality Project
• Center for the Integration and Advancement of New Americans
• Chhaya Community Development Corporation
• Chinatown Partnership LDC
• Chinatown YMCA
• Chinese American IPA
• Chinese American Social Services Center
• Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
• Chinese Progressive Association
• Chinese-American Family Alliance for Mental Health
• CMP
• Council of Peoples Organization
• Damayan Migrant Workers Association
• Desis Rising Up and Moving
• Garden of Hope
• Hamilton-Madison House
• Homecrest Community Services
• Immigrant Social Services
• India Home
• Jahajee Sisters
• Japanese American Association of New York
• Japanese American Social Services, Inc.
• Karen Society of Buffalo
• Korean American Family Service Center
• Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York
• Laal NYC
• Mekong Center NYC
• Midtown Utica Community Center
• Migrant Center
• MinKwon Center
• Refugees Helping Refugees
• Sakhi for South Asian Women
• Sapna NYC
• Sikh Coalition
• South Asian Council for Social Service
• South Asian Youth Action
• Turning Point for Women and Families
• United Chinese Association of Brooklyn
• Womankind (formerly NYAWC)
• Women for Afghan Women
• YWCA of Queens

The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families will receive over $1 million, and they will be partnering with a host of organizations -- including Apex for Youth, the Arab American Family Support Center, Asian Americans for Equality, Chinese-American Planning Council, South Asian Youth Action! Korean American Family Service Center, MinKwon Center for Community Action, and Mekong NYC -- to enhance youth and young adult services targeting Asian American communities by focusing on social emotional development and mental well-being.

Anita Gundanna and Vanessa Leung, Co-Executive Directors of the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families said: "Through this crisis intervention funding, CACF with eight of our organizations have collaboratively developed a curriculum to support young people’s healthy sense of self, community connection and belonging, and self-agency.”

The Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), a social services organization that creates positive social change, will receive almost $700,000 to help empower Asian American, immigrant, and low-income communities in New York City by ensuring they have equitable access to the resources and opportunities needed to thrive. 

The funding will support CPC’s culturally competent, linguistically appropriate community services and programs to improve the social determinants of health for children, youth, students, families, and seniors. Through this initiative, they will expand public access to resources, expand workforce service, enhance wrap-around case management and expand early childhood development.

 “Our Asian American communities are facing a crisis of anti-Asian hatred and violence. We are frightened. We are angry," said Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou. 

"This is a great start, but we can and must do better. I urge my colleagues in Albany to support additional resources our community so desperately needs."

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

US hospitals look to the Philippines to fill shortage of health care workers; nursing recruits win lawsuits

Filipino nurses settle lawsuit with Albany Medical Center.

With the emergence of the COVID-19 delta variant and continued demand for health care professionals, hospitals and recruiters around the world will look towards the Philippines for help. Filipino nurses are in high demand.

Exacerbating the shortage of health care workers is the Great Resignation. US nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted of taking care of thousands of COVID-19 patients that have overwhelmed hospitals. Nearly 1 in 5 health care workers have quit their job during the pandemic and the Labor Department projects a shortfall of more than a million nurses in the coming year..

“Every time there’s a US shortage, the US has turned to the Philippines for help,” said Leo Feli-Jurado, professor of nursing at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

With the lure of higher pay and a better chance of securing a US, British or Australian visa, Filipino nurses are answering the call. But there are hidden pitfalls in the fine print offered by some recruiters

US embassies and consulates were instructed last summer that they may prioritize “as emergencies on a case-by-case basis the immigrant visa cases of certain health care professionals who will work at a facility engaged in pandemic response.”

“There has never been a more urgent need for the care that foreign-trained nurses provide than during the current COVID-19 pandemic and its looming aftermath,” the American Hospital Association wrote last June to the US State Department.

“These professionals play critical roles in ensuring the health of the communities we serve. … Foreign-trained nurses do not displace American workers. At the same time, the demand for nurses continues to grow. Many foreign-trained nurses are recruited to rural and inner-city hospitals, locations that find it more difficult to recruit domestically.”

Jurado said Filipino nurses often end up taking jobs in high stress environments that others might refuse. That may have contributed to disproportionate risks during the pandemic. According to a recent survey, Filipinos made up more than a quarter of COVID-19 deaths among US nurses, despite being only 4% of the workforce.

A group of nurses from the Philippines have filed a suit against Health Carousel, a healthcare staffing agency based in Ohio, accusing the company of wage theft and other unfair labor practices, reports Bloomberg earlier this month.

The lawsuit was filed by Novie Dale Carmen, a nurse from the Philippines who signed a three-year commitment with Health Carousel to come to the U.S. and work at a hospital in Muncy, Pa. Carmen ended up paying a $20,000 quitting fee to get out of her contract early.

Low wages, mandatory overtime that did not count toward the 6,240 hours on her contract, and a ban keeping her from discussing her working conditions pushed Ms. Carmen to the costly decision to pay the quitting fee.

"I was basically trapped," she told Bloomberg. "Duped."

Since originally filing the suit against Health Carousel, two more plaintiffs have joined. The suit accuses the company of human trafficking — which the Department of Homeland Security defines as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor — wage theft and racketeering.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Health Carousel denied wrongdoing.

"We are proud of our work to place internationally trained nurses at understaffed hospital systems in the United States," the company said. "We invest to recruit these professionals and sponsor their employment-based visas to fulfill their dreams," adding that it expects employees who do not finish their contracts to pay back its upfront expenses, which include things such as a visa, licensing and travel.

The news outlet cited a filing from last year where Health Carousel said it "denies all allegations that Plaintiff or any of its nurses were indentured servants to Health Carousel" and denied claims that its contract terms are "draconian."

It is the not the first lawsuit against a recruitment agency.

Most recently in June last year, a New York court ordered Prompt Nurssing Employment Agency LLC, doing business as Sentosa Services, to pay the Filipino plaintiffs $1.56 million after it had violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and broken their contract by threatening to seriously harm the nurses financially if they left their jobs early.

The court ruled that Sentosa violated the trafficking victims act because the nurses were forced to remain in the agency’s employ to avoid repercussions and charges they wouldn’t be able to pay.

In a similar case versus Albany Medical Center, Attorney General James said in a press statement: “By forcing its employees to choose between paying outrageous sums to leave their jobs, or facing immigration authorities, Albany Med violated their rights as workers and as individuals.”

A New York State Nurses Association lawsuit against Albany Medical Center led to the agreement which resulted in the hospital paying the nurses $90,000.

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