Racism toward Chinese- and Asian-Americans & COVID-19

What’s in (or isn’t in) the News

Thumbnail photo credit: Simon Ma on Unsplash

*folx - a non-gendered term used to explicitly signal the inclusion of commonly marginalized groups. I use it here to emphasize that people of Asian descent can be of any sex, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, or any other identity-category under which they may identify, as well as to highlight that they are a marginalized group.

*AAPI - "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders" - used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans.

*BIPOC - "Black Indigenous People of Color" - used to describe any person who is not considered white. The term emphasizes common experiences of systemic racism faced by communities within this identity. The acronym aims to emphasize the historical oppression of black and indigenous people. I use it here in order to highlight that folx of Asian descent fall within this group.

If you've scrolled through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media platform lately, you've most likely noticed the stream of posts by folx of Asian descent and their allies regarding recent assaults on members of their community.

These posts are addressing, condemning, and informing audiences about the surge in racist assaults on Asian Americans and individuals of Asian descent.

All around the world AAPI and Asian folx are being disproportionately assaulted, robbed, and even murdered in apparently random occurrences. However, this phenomenon of increased attacks on the AAPI and Asian community correlates with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and is most notable in the United States.

For example, during what should have been a festive time in the San Francisco Bay Area, known for widespread celebrations of the Lunar New Year, over a dozen attacks have been documented, specifically against older individuals.

In February of this year, victims of these attacks included a 91-year-old man in Oakland's Chinatown who suffered multiple serious injuries after being thrown to the ground; a 64-year-old woman in San Jose who was robbed and assaulted; and an 84-year-old man in San Francisco who died after suffering injuries when he was tackled to the ground by a man who ran at him out of nowhere.

This surge in violence against the Asian and AAPI community in the United States is not limited to the Bay Area, however. On February 16, two Asian-American women, aged 68 and 71, were assaulted in separate incidents on the New York City subway.

On the same day, Juanito Falcon, a 74-year-old grandfather, was murdered in Phoenix, Arizona. According to a statement by the Phoenix police, Falcon was attacked by a male passerby "for no apparent reason" as he was walking alone. He suffered multiple head injuries and died two days later in the hospital.

On March 5, 41-year-old Marcus Williams was arrested and booked for the murder of Falcon. The police statement elaborated that, "Detectives have been unable to uncover a motive for this attack."

Although police say that there is no evidence to suggest that it was a racially-motivated incident, this violent assault does not stand alone among a surge in attacks against Asian and AAPI individuals in the U.S.

One common theory to explain these horrific attacks points to the racist rhetoric that has targeted people of Chinese and Asian descent for having caused the coronavirus pandemic.

It is not uncommon in the U.S. to desperately search for a scapegoat when times get tough. In fact, the country has a history of blaming immigrants when world-wide diseases emerge. For example, Irish immigrants were blamed for cholera in the 1800s, Jewish immigrants were targeted for tuberculosis shortly afterward, Italian immigrants were held responsible for polio in the 20th century, and Chinatown was viewed as a hotspot for San Francisco's bubonic plague, with white citizens urging the government to burn it down.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, racist scapegoating was most apparent within the food industry. While the entire sector took a hit as the pandemic forced many food establishments to shut down, COVID closures had a disproportionate impact on places serving Asian food, especially Chinese restaurants. This was due to fears among Americans that the virus was being spread directly from China, and therefore anything or anyone associated with the country could be "contagious".

According to data pulled by the software company, Womply, business for Chinese restaurants fell considerably once the new coronavirus made its way to the U.S.: "Chinese restaurants nationwide…saw a 13% increase in year-over-year sales in January. Since then, sales have fallen 1%".

A study by Ohio State University points to three main reasons for the scapegoating of Chinese, and through racist generalization, Asian individuals: "racial prejudice, poor coping ability, and highly partisan media viewing leading to an online echo chamber." Racial prejudice, in particular, was pinpointed as the leading cause for this ongoing blame.

According to Wenbo Li, who co-authored the study, "It turned out that the stereotypes and beliefs that people already had about Asian-Americans were more powerful in predicting stigmatization than other factors we studied."

On top of it all, throughout a majority of the time during which the world has been under siege by COVID-19, the U.S. was under the leadership of one of the most openly racist presidents its oval office has ever housed: Donald J. Trump.

It comes as no surprise that individuals with a racist attitude toward Asians and Asian-Americans have felt comfortable blaming them for the pandemic when the 45th president himself has frequently perpetuated such rhetoric. Trump has regularly referred to COVID 19 as the "China Virus" in an attempt to exempt himself of any blame for the disturbingly large amount of death and illness caused on his watch. He has also publicly promoted (via Twitter) a conspiracy theory that suggests the virus was concocted purposefully by the Chinese. Although (for the majority of us) it goes without saying, this conspiracy theory has been debunked several times.

Current U.S. President, Joe R. Biden Jr., is not without fault, either. Back in May of 2020, an open letter by the AAPI Force urged the then presidential candidate to "renounce the belligerent anti-Chinese rhetoric of a recent video ad for his campaign." The video ad attacks Trump for praising the Chinese government for how it handled the spread of COVID-19, and the letter denounces Biden's "embrace of rhetoric vilifying their communities, which are already targeted by Trump's anti-Chinese invectives."

The Ohio State University study highlights other factors that have played a role in this scapegoating. Prejudice was reported more often by people who felt most harmed by the pandemic, those who felt most afraid of the virus's repercussions, and those with lesser support systems.

The study also found that people who received their news from conservative outlets which supported Donald Trump, such as Fox News, as well as from social media platforms, were more likely to scapegoat people of Asian descent as the cause for the pandemic than those who got their news from more leftist or centrist news outlets, and those who consumed less social media.

According to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been nearly 3,000 incidents of race crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans in the U.S. across 47 states and the District of Columbia.

So why are we only hearing about this now?

If you've done as much scrolling as I have, you will have noticed that many of the posts on social media by the AAPI community and its allies not only reference the attacks themselves, but also the lack of police and media attention to these attacks.

The Stupski Foundation, for example, highlighted the unacceptable deficiency in media coverage in response to the series of violent attacks back in February.

"The lack of media coverage and public attention on rising anti-Asian hate crimes and anti-Asian sentiment in our community is disturbing. We learned about these hate crimes and several others spreading across the country through grassroots social media campaigns and petitions from Asian American civil rights leaders after over a week of silence from most mainstream media outlets."

One explanation - though not a justification - for insufficient coverage of anti-Asian attacks is the understandable focus on racist attacks against Black folx. Since the egregious and intolerable killing of George Floyd back on May 25th, 2020, which - along with too many other attacks and killings against Black folx by the police - instigated an uprising in the Black Lives Matter movement, the media has - justly so - focused on racist violence exhibited toward Black folx, specifically Black Americans. It has become a powerful and much-needed movement of anti-racism in the streets, in the news, and on social media.

The biggest concern highlighted by the AAPI community and its allies, since the recent attacks on folx of Asian descent, is that Asian POC also experience violent and non-violent acts of racism every day. It is not unique to these times that Asian-Americans and individuals of Asian descent in the U.S. receive less support, media coverage, and community assistance than other BIPOC when it comes to racist action taken against them. The calls from the Asian and Asian-American community in the U.S., and its allies, are simply declaring that we cannot afford to allow these actions to be left by the wayside or altogether forgotten.

I want to stress that it is not my intention, or the intention of proponents for racial justice for AAPI, to request that any of the justified media coverage of anti-Black violence and prejudice be lessened. On the contrary, voices are imploring the media to expand their crucial coverage to include acts of anti-Asian violence, and other forms of anti-Asian racism.

A statement by the director of the UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute addresses the contentions between minority communities that can arise in times of stress, such as a global pandemic:

"It is very clear that anti-Asian attacks and bias exist today as they have for a long time, and should be widely condemned, no matter who the culprits are. We must also not ignore the reality that there is and can be tension between any two marginalized communities, including Blacks and Asians. … We need a new story where we all can contribute and co-create, one that acknowledges our respective suffering, and that insists that we all belong not because we agree, but because we care and we are human."

Along with the entire BIPOC community and its allies, activists for Asian and Asian-American rights must (the majority do) acknowledge and demonstrate support for the racism experienced by Black folx, especially when it comes to the disproportionate killings of Black folx by the police.

This is because Black Americans share a particularly harrowing legacy and current experience of racism in America. This racist history began in the 17th century when the first African slaves were forced by British privateers to land in Point Comfort, Virginia, near Jamestown. It continued even after June 19th, 1865 - celebrated as Juneteenth - when 2 months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, Union General Gordon Granger finally arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the last-to-know no-longer-enslaved African Americans of their freedom.

It continued even after Jim Crow laws - which enforced racial segregation - were declared unconstitutional within public schools during Brown v. Board of Education, and even after the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It continued even after the first Black person was elected as President of the United States of America in 2008: Barack Obama. And it continues today; in part due to systemic and social racism driven by the country's infrastructures and policies that are rooted in prejudice, and in part through covert microaggressions by those with good intentions or those with overtly racist and white supremacist beliefs.

And all the while, the trauma carried and passed down from individual to individual, from family to family, since the historical onset of racism against Black folx is well known to any Black person living or having lived in the United States.

This is not lost on supporters of and activists for the Asian and Asian-American experience. It is and will continue to be crucial to shout, to share, to post, to remind, and to remember that Black Lives Matter; this truth exists at the same time that racism toward AAPI must also be acknowledged and addressed.

Particularly during Black history month, online activists, members of the Asian/Asian American community, and allies have highlighted the solidarity between the Black and Asian/Asian American communities in confronting racism.

For instance, AAPIP (Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy), has highlighted the importance of solidarity between racial minority groups.

"The politically and socially-constructed concept of race categorized people along a one-dimensional continuum from Black to White; giving rise to the multi-dimensional and institutional system of racial oppression. In honor of Black History Month, AAPIP searched for but found very little on the web that brings together the historical connections across African American and Asian American experiences. And so, we offer this piece as a beginning way of connecting the dots between a sample of moments in U.S. history."

The recent uncovering of the shooting of Christian Hall by police is a reminder that police violence against BIPOC, like all racist violence, is experienced by all BIPOC individuals, including Asian POC, if not as frequently or intensely as Black folx, too often.

In February of this year, a video came to light showing that on December 30, 2020, "19-year-old Chinese-American Christian Hall was shot and killed by Pennsylvania State Police. At the time of his shooting, Hall was said to be suicidal and experiencing a mental health crisis when officers were called to deescalate the situation. Instead of providing assistance, they resorted to lethal force. Police justified the killing by saying that Hall was wielding a handgun when they arrived at the scene. Initially, the officers reported that Hall had retrieved his gun and directed it at them, a narrative that was later contradicted by video footage that showed Hall with his hands in the air when he was shot."

Social activist and entrepreneur Amanda Nguyen opened up on the People Everyday podcast by highlighting the emotional repercussions of this rise in attacks for herself and others.

"It's a fog of fear walking out the door. I have friends who have texted me saying, 'Oh, I'm trying to figure out how to wear my mask in a different way, to draw my eyeliner in a different way to make my eyes look bigger'…Anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination unfortunately … existed long before COVID. It existed as soon as Asian-Americans - well, as Asian people - stepped into this country."

Lest we forget, folx of Asian descent also carry an intense racist history in the United States. Like many Americans, I found myself needing to refresh my memory a bit more when it came to historical racism against Asian Americans. The U.S. has a tendency to barely touch upon issues for which it was on the wrong side of history.

If you're an American reading this, think back to elementary school: how much do you really remember about Native American genocide? The Stonewall riots? The Salem witch trials? Now compare that to how much you remember about the Holocaust, a horrifying ordeal for which the U.S. was officially on the "right" side? I personally can recall specific events from that time in history much more easily than from the previous three… I do, however, remember learning about slavery. Of course, it was via a rose-colored glasses approach that all but declares the repercussions of U.S. enslavement of Black folx as over and done with - a thing of the past! But I do remember learning more about slavery than about Japanese internment camps or the "what-is-that-again" Chinese Exclusion Act.

Around 1850, Chinese workers began to immigrate to the United States to escape war and economic distress. Though they were initially welcomed by white Californians, Chinese immigrants were soon subjected to racism stemming from worries of labor competition. This eventually led the state of California to codify racism into official policy beginning with the California Supreme Court decision People vs. Hall in 1854, making it impossible for a Chinese man to act as a witness against a white murder defendant. The city of San Francisco eventually passed ordinances preventing Chinese immigrants from owning and operating laundromats, an industry in which they had been leading. This paved the way for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of any Chinese laborers to the U.S.

The 1942 internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (the forced relocation and incarceration of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in response to Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor) was another example of violent, inhumane racist legislation and action by the U.S. government against folx of Asian descent. This affected both Asian Americans and immigrants; for many in both groups, the United States was home.

This forced internment was often based solely on appearance, so anyone who appeared Japanese was considered a guilty party. This demonstrated the racist underlinings of historical prejudice and violence against Asian immigrants: any person of Asian descent was grouped in with the rest and treated accordingly. This visual generalization is in many cases still at the core of anti-Asian racism in the U.S.

There are those who maintain that racism against Asian Americans is a "thing of the past," arguing that anti-Chinese legislation was eventually overturned and that Japanese-Americans "received reparations." It is pertinent to remember, however, that "reparations" do not purge society of racial prejudice and its very real consequences.

Even with this in mind, some might say that racism is not experienced as harshly or as frequently by those of Asian descent compared to anti-Black racism, throwing around the can't-we-just-get-rid-of-it-already term, "model minority." As recently as the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalent narrative about individuals of Asian descent in the U.S. was that of "model minority."

The notion of "model minority" was conceived around the time of World War II, proposing that Asian-Americans were "ideal immigrants" - at least among BIPOC immigrants - which was demonstrated by their overall economic success. Not only that, but they were also considered more "tolerable" because of their reputation of responsibility and law-abiding behavior.

And yet, in the grand scheme of things, this is a complete 180 degree turn in American attitudes toward folx of Asian descent. Asian immigrants, as noted above, were long considered to be a threat to the U.S.; they were identified with the racist term "yellow peril" and considered unsuitable for citizenship. At the time, this was the widely accepted perspective because it promoted the interests of white people.

That is it did until the 1960s when the U.S. turned on its heels and claimed that the exemplary behavior and participation of Asian-Americans within the U.S. economic, legal and social systems made them, you guessed it, a "model minority." Pointing out the advancement of Asians within the American system through working hard, maintaining a low profile, and not complaining about how things worked, was used as a tactic against the Civil Rights movement.

As such, the current social and racial justice movement often allows the struggles and endeavors of folx of Asian descent to take a back seat because their stereotypical image of "success through abiding by the system" can be used against the calls for change made by other BIPOC, particularly Black folx.

In his recent article for KQED, Larry Jin Lee takes it one step further by arguing that other minority groups resent the "model minority" label given to folx of Asian descent in the U.S.:

"Ironically, the very qualities that stereotypically make Asian Americans more acceptable to White America, shaped over the course of a racist history, being accommodating, passive, quiet and non-aggressive, are the very same characteristics that can make us a target…Our provisional acceptance by White America is perceived as being sellouts, which compounds the sense of betrayal and resentment. There's a racist saying, Asian Americans are like popcorn, they turn white when under pressure."

This is extremely isolating for Asian and AAPI folx who would otherwise be fighting alongside those who demand justice and fair treatment for minority groups.

Such is the achievement of the white supremacist "divide-and-conquer" strategy: it has convinced society that people of Asian descent have no real need for a role in the fight for equality. Subsequently, they are often overlooked when it comes to social, economic, and political assistance, as well as media coverage when they are at the brunt of a racially charged issue.

This control of the narrative by a white-dominated society is why there is such an appalling lack in media coverage of the rise in attacks against people of Asian descent since the beginning of the pandemic, and why it is so crucial to give this issue - along with the entire plight of Asian and AAPI folx within the BIPOC community - more traction.

It is important to inform yourself and others regarding the historical and current racism experienced by folx of Asian descent. This involves greater representation in discussions around race discrimination, it means listening to folx when they share their needs and struggles, and it requires sharing and intaking media that brings to light the issues of Asians and AAPI.

According to the Ohio State University study, there are proven ways to help "reduce stigmatization aimed at people of Asian descent." For instance, people who report frequently watching foreign-language films correlate with a lesser demonstration of prejudice. Being exposed to other cultures through movies and television decreases the tendency to believe stereotypes.

The greatest finding, however, was a clear association between valuing "collective efficacy" and denouncing racial stigmatization against folx of Asian descent. Collective efficacy is a term that describes the belief that if we work together, we can and will achieve what is needed. Basically, it involves trusting people within a community to do right by it and each other. Most importantly, collective efficacy is achieved through recognition and commendation of "good" behavior rather than the punishment of "bad" behavior.

In essence, it is believing in the inherent goodness of others.

Folx of Asian descent and AAPI have been especially targeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the next bout of turbulence, pandemic or otherwise, might put a different group at risk. Bias and prejudice are exacerbated in times of struggle, which is why doing everything in our power to unlearn our biases and our prejudices is at the forefront of creating a safer, more trusting, and communally-focused world.

Never stop educating yourself about our history, injustice, and often surreptitious bias in the cultural narrative. And if you are able, it never hurts to educate somebody else.

For more information visit: https://stopaapihate.org/