Anti-Asian Violence
“When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,” I replace the word “white” with “disappear.” Asians are next in line to disappear. We are reputed to be so accomplished, and so law-abiding, we will disappear into this country’s amnesiac fog. We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors.”
Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 21 of this newsletter. Today we are talking about something that’s been shared across social media and news outlets with haste the last few weeks, Anti-Asian Violence During COVID. To understand the surge of xenophobia that’s been highlighted recently, you must understand the history of Asians in America. From being exploited as cheap labor, to being stereotyped as effeminate men and promiscuous women, to constantly being “othered” in internment camps and 9/11 hate crimes, to being reduced to the Model Minority Myth, racism against the Asian-American community is not new. Let’s talk about how Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric in regard to the “kung flu” has resulted in a resurgence of anti-Asian xenophobia.
As an Afro-Latina who lives with (and is engaged to) an Asian and Latino partner, we often discuss the ways in which our identities intersect. We talk about the types of racism we have faced, the stereotypes associated with our identities, and the ways in which our future child will navigate the world as a Puerto Rican, Dominican, Chinese and Korean person. Lunar New Year is here and it’ll be my fifth one with Richard’s family. I’ve seen so many folks take this opportunity to talk about this topic at this time, and wanted to do the same. Today we delve into some background, cover some of the most recent examples of bigotry, and as always, discuss action steps to create change. Let’s get into it!
Key Terms
Asian: The Census Bureau defines a person of the Asian race as “having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.”
Xenophobia: The fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an ingroup and an outgroup and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a desire to eliminate their presence, and fear of losing national, ethnic or racial identity.
Model Minority: An ethnic minority demographic group whose members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average. This success is typically measured by income, education, low criminality, and high family/marital stability. When we call Asian-Americans “model minorities” we refer to them as a monolith, erase their history, reduce their experiences, and perpetuate white supremacy.
“Forever Foreigner” Trope: A misguided argument founded on “respectability politics” that further puts the onus on Asian Americans to demonstrate how American they are — and it’s revealing of how much some people still think Asians need to compensate for looking “different.” This idea helped lay the groundwork for Japanese internment during World War II, when Japanese American citizens were sent to detention camps solely on the basis of their ethnicity, due to suspicions that they were abetting the Japanese government in some way. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Islamophobia toward Muslim Americans and prejudice toward South Asian Americans was similarly fueled by assumptions that people were not loyal to the United States because of their religion, ethnicity and external appearance.
Yellow Peril: The term “yellow peril” originated in the 1800s, when Chinese laborers were brought to the United States to replace emancipated Black communities as a cheap source of labor. Chinese laborers made less than their white counterparts, and also became victims of racist backlash from white workers who saw them as a threat to their livelihood. This fear led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first law to restrict immigration based on race.
Chinese Exclusion Act: In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.
Japanese Internment Camps: These were established during World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps. Enacted in reaction to Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war, the Japanese internment camps are now considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century.
Let’s Get Into It
A Brief History
In the 1880s, Chinese laborers were brought to the United States to replace emancipated Black communities. “Yellow peril”—fear of an Asian invasion and resentment of the cheap labor coming from China—paved the way for the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning both new immigrants and existing residents from becoming U.S. citizens. It wasn’t until the Immigration Act of 1965 that the race-specific barriers were removed.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered more than 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps during WWII. Enacted in reaction to Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war, the Japanese internment camps are now considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century.
Between 1940 and 1970, Asian Americans not only surpassed African Americans in average household earnings, but they also closed the wage gap with whites. Hilger’s research suggests that Asian Americans started to earn more because their fellow Americans became less racist toward them. Embracing Asian Americans “provided a powerful means for the United States to proclaim itself a racial democracy and thereby credentialed to assume the leadership of the free world,” Ellen Wu writes in her book “The Color of Success”. Stories about Asian American success were turned into propaganda.
By the 1960s, anxieties about the civil right movement caused white Americans to further invest in positive portrayals of Asian Americans. The image of the hard-working Asian became an extremely convenient way to deny the demands of African Americans. Both liberal and conservative politicians pumped up the image of Asian Americans as a way to shift the blame for black poverty. This is the birth of the Model Minority stereotype.
In the 1980s, Asian communities in America starting mobilizing to fight for their civil rights. The trigger was a murder: In 1982, Chinese-American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two white men a few days before his wedding.
After 9/11, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, many of whom were South Asian, documented scores of revenge-motivated hate crimes in the U.S.
In 2020, as COVID-19 infections appeared in the U.S., President Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus" and "Kung flu," and pushed a disproved theory that it had originated in a Chinese lab. By April an IPSOS poll found that 3 in 10 Americans blamed China or Chinese people for the virus.
Violence During the Pandemic
Over the past year, anti-Asian incidents have surged across the country: There have been more than 2,800 since last spring, according to Stop AAPI Hate.
Ranging from verbal abuse and workplace discrimination to storefront vandalism and physical violence, many of these assaults have been fueled by xenophobic sentiment that seeks to scapegoat Asian Americans for the spread of the coronavirus.
Activists emphasize that it’s important for communities of color to stand in solidarity, and to make sure that policing is not viewed as the main form of redress — given how policing has disproportionately harmed Black Americans. Instead, they note that communities need to focus on cross-racial education and healing, in order to raise awareness about the discrimination that different groups experience.
According to an Ipsos survey, 60 percent of Asian Americans have observed people blaming members of their community for Covid-19.
The association of Asian Americans with the coronavirus activated age-old stereotypes that have associated immigrants of Asian descent with “weird” foods, dirtiness, and illness.
Attacks on the Asian-American community have included included an Asian American child getting pushed off her bike by a bystander at a park, a family at a grocery store getting spat on and accused of being responsible for the coronavirus, vandalism outside businesses, elders being attacked on the street, a man in New York being slashed across the face, and then there is the death of Ratanapakdee in San Francisco this past month.
In a recent executive action, President Joe Biden condemned anti-Asian racism, marking a stark change from the Trump administration. He’s also instructed the Justice Department to begin gathering data on these attacks and to strip discriminatory language from federal documents. But it is going to take more than one message denouncing such acts to maintain this dialogue and ensure that members of these communities get the funding and legal backing they need. (Vox)
Action Steps
Don’t be a bystander. The term “bystander effect” refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress. When an emergency situation occurs, observers are more likely to take action if there are few or no other witnesses. Being part of a large crowd makes it so no single person has to take responsibility for an action (or inaction). There are 2 major reasons why this happens:
1. When folks are in a group, they don’t feel as much pressure to act because of a sense of shared responsibility.
2. When others fail to act, we see this as a social cue, that stepping in would be in inappropriate and not socially acceptable.
Support your local Asian-American community. In NYC, the Light Up Chinatown Project helps support struggling small businesses who have suffered during this pandemic. In California, you can support Chinatown through the Chinatown Service Center. You can also order yourself some amazing Chinese food and support small businesses that way!
Next week, we talk about Tone Policing! See ya there.
