Hate crimes against AAPI community increase

In the year 2020, hate crimes towards the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community increased by 149% overall — an astonishing development that indicates the rise of anti-Asian bias within the United States. 

The New York Times has connected more than 110 of these incidents to race based hate, finding that they have occurred mainly in densely populated cities with large Asian populations, and that nearly half involved a reference to the coronavirus. Their database paints an altogether disturbing picture: Animosity towards Asian communities is resurging in the United States and has resulted in the lives of Asian Americans being threatened all across the country. 

Beyond the scope of hate crimes, which only encompasses a specific set of crimes, there have been 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents in the past year according to NBC News, with women making up roughly 68% of the victims. In 2021 alone, 503 of those incidents were reported.

Lewis & Clark’s Asian Student Union (ASU) recognizes that anti-Asian bias is not a recent phenomenon within the United States. As a student organization, they strive to create a safe space for LC’s AAPI community and represent them as a minority group on campus. On April 13, they met to discuss the ongoing attacks against people of Asian descent, coming together as a community to grieve and reflect on the lives that have been lost.      

ASU Leader Jinju Hurley ’22 believes it is important for people to acknowledge the country’s long history of xenophobia and racism.  

“People have to remember that anti-Asian racism didn’t just start in March of 2020,” Hurley said. “It’s been there for a long time. And it’s often been ignored because we are seen as the model minority, which is just a horrible myth perpetuated by white supremacy.”

The AAPI community has a long history of mistreatment within the United States. Going back to the 1850s, Chinese immigrants were commonly exploited for their labor and denied citizenship. Largely aiding that effort was the People v. Hall decision of 1854, which ruled that people of Asian descent could not testify against a white person in a court of law. This not only encouraged acts of violence toward Asian communities, but also contributed to the formation of racist beliefs.

Years of racism culminated in a situation that is much like the one the AAPI community faces today: the San Francisco plague of 1900. As the disease spread, San Francisco’s Chinatown was promptly blamed for causing the outbreak, resulting in the harassment of Chinese residents and an increasingly negative perception of them. Since then, Asian Americans have continued to face bigotry and xenophobia, especially during the internment of Japanese people during World War II.

ASU Leader Alys Chang ’22 says that this history of racism and trauma is recognized by Asian communities but often ignored in the mainstream media, which has allowed anti-Asian sentiments to gain prominence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.            

“These crimes have always been here,” Chang said. “These microaggressions, racism, it’s always been there. But COVID kind of allowed people to say, ‘That’s ok.’”

As reported on by Time Magazine, the recent rise in hate crimes and racist incidents in the United States has been paralleled by global trends. Documented instances of anti-Asian abuse have surfaced in Australia, Brazil and Italy, and research conducted in New Zealand found that 54% of Chinese respondents experienced discrimination since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Moreover, the United Kingdom experienced a 300% increase in hate crimes towards people of East and Southeast Asian heritage as well.  

With the increase of hate crimes outside of the United States, Chang believes that the narrative surrounding anti-Asian bias should take on a global perspective.         

“A lot of Asians that emigrated to Western countries, they are experiencing that same thing,” Chang said. “It’s not just an American thing, it’s not just a U.K. thing, it’s not just an Australian thing. It’s how we are perceived in the West, in Western media.”

In particular, both Chang and Hurley view political figures like former President Donald Trump as important for understanding the vitriol and harassment AAPI communities have faced in the past year. 

“I think that hateful people like Trump definitely helped perpetuate this,” Hurley said. “And I think that Trump had a great incentive to do so because that would maybe take some eyes off his own incompetency in dealing with this coronavirus.”

Over the course of the pandemic, Trump repeatedly tried to shift the blame to China for the United States’ worsening public health crisis. Most notably, this took the form of publicly calling the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus” and the “Kung Flu.” A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health concluded that his rhetoric towards China “likely perpetuated racist attitudes” online.

Along with figures like Trump who laid the groundwork for racist viewpoints, Hurley said the continuation of stereotypes enables people to commit acts of aggression and harassment against the AAPI population.        

“The stereotype of mystery definitely plays into it a bit,” Hurley said. “That goes hand in hand with the coronavirus — it kind of just popped up out of nowhere and changed our lives. And so, I think maybe a lot of people can more easily make that association (between China and the virus) than if the coronavirus was first spotted in France or something like that.”    

Ultimately, with stereotypes having a substantial influence on how people view AAPI individuals, Chang wants to see more people educate themselves on how they perceive Asian communities in order to more effectively address their own prejudices towards them.   

“All I can really hope is that people grow a tolerance for themselves and to grow a tolerance to being wrong,” Chang said. “Because it’s ok. It’s ok to be wrong, it’s ok to look back and be like, ‘Oh, I had this prejudice. I did this, I did that.’ That’s fine. Moving forward, don’t do that to the next person.”

Starting next semester, ASU plans on hosting more discussions with the broader LC community surrounding the prejudices and racism people of Asian descent face, in order to increase awareness about how it continues to affect them today.   

If you or someone you know has been affected by anti-Asian violence or harassment, you can access stopaapihate.org or standagainsthatred.org to report an incident. You can also visit https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/ for mental health and educational resources.