By Loan-Ahn Pham, AsAmNews Intern
Racism and scapegoating during hard times? Not new. Anti-Asian racism during a pandemic? Not new either.
A recent paper published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice studies the rise of hate crimes against Asians during the coronavirus pandemic and its connections with previous instances throughout American history.
“Myself and my co-authors were concerned about media reports of increases in hate crime against Asian Americans throughout the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic began to proliferate,” Shannon Harper, author of the paper and Iowa State University assistant professor, told AsAmNews.
“We argue that what is occurring now with anti-Asian hate crime during the coronavirus pandemic is a different manifestation of a similar dynamic situated in socially and institutionally entrenched racism and xenophobia,” Harper continued.
The paper, “Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality” can be accessed here.
Anti-Asian Racism Then
The burning of numerous Chinatowns and the incarceration of Japanese Americans have been a part of the long history of anti-Asian racism in the United States.
One example in the paper notes the eerily familiar othering of Asian Americans during another public health crisis: the San Francisco bubonic plague of 1900.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first time a public health crisis has resulted in the othering and disparate treatment of Asian Americans,” the paper notes. “When the bubonic plague began in San Francisco, CA in 1900, public health officials implemented a race-based response by quarantining Chinese residents in Chinatown, the epicenter of the outbreak, while allowing White merchants to leave.”
“People become afraid of catching disease or dying during pandemics and look for an effective scapegoat to make sense of what is occurring,” Harper said. “Unfortunately, during the coronavirus pandemic, Asian Americans have been unjustly assigned that role.”
Legislation has long been a weapon for xenophobia, Russell Jeung, an Asian American studies professor at San Francisco State University, said.
“In those cases of historic racism, we have the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese American incarceration, the detention and deportation of Muslims, and the Muslim ban,” Jeung told AsAmNews. “Today, we have an immigration ban currently, a proposed second Chinese Exclusion Act banning Chinese STEM students, barring international students who are only taking classes online.”
In fact, Jeung said, spikes in hate crimes against Asians can be linked to leaders like President Trump using phrases such as ‘the Chinese virus’ or ‘kung flu’.
Clearly, Harper said, language on the part of public officials and institutions impacts the view of the common person.
“Arguably, language used by politicians is important because it establishes standards for what is socially perceived as acceptable behavior toward marginalized people,” Harper said.
Anti-Asian Racism Now
As headlines in March began detailing the Asians being verbally harassed, spit on, and beaten, Jeung and his team knew they had to “hold government accountable.”
“COVID-19 discrimination was occurring, and we needed to document it,” Jeung said.
The Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center collects self-reported accounts of anti-Asian racism while also providing resources. Just a few days after the website launched, hundreds of reports came pouring in.
“It’s leveled off, but people are still reporting so our numbers grow daily,” Jeung told AsAmNews. “We’re over 2500 incidents.”
According to Jeung, data has consistently shown that 70% to 80% of reports are verbal harassment cases detailing hate-filled tirades with racial slurs involved. Coughing and being spat upon is also a regular occurrence, so much so that the team created a separate category for it, Jeung said.
Harassment has also occurred to Asians across the board and is not restricted to Chinese Americans or East Asians, Jeung said.
“It’s a case of racial profiling,” Jeung said. “If you look East Asian, then you’ll be attacked.”
The status of Asian in America is very “conditional,” Jeung said. Asians can be lauded as the successful model minority, before suddenly shifting to become foreigners.
“We could quickly shift to being an outsider, and it switches in times of epidemic, in times of war, and in times of economic downturn,” Jeung said. “And currently, we’re in the midst of all three: we have the pandemic, we have the worst recession since the depression, and we started a cold war against China.”
“There’s a clear black-white binary in the United States, but there’s also an insider-outsider binary that some racial groups are perceived as outsiders, including the Hispanic Latinx community, Asian Americans and Arab Middle Easterners… We’re perceived as not belonging.” Jeung continued.
Fighting back
Social media is a 21st century development that can level the playing field, Harper said.
According to Harper, social media can be a tool for activism and has the power to raise awareness, including the recent slews of viral videos documenting hate crimes.
“During the coronavirus pandemic, Asian Americans have been sharing their experiences of bias motivated harassment and violence with the #IAmNotAVirus and #WashTheHate hashtags,” Harper continued. “Collectively, these online platforms have brought much needed attention to what is occurring and allowed victims to find a community of individuals who have had similar experiences, which may help to address trauma.”
Anti-asian racism will likely go on long after the end of the pandemic, Jeung said.
“We don’t think the surge of hate will decrease,” Jeung continued. “After 9/11, the hate against Muslims and the racialization of Muslims continued on and became really embedded in the American consciousness.”
“We went from crazy rich Asians to crazy infected Asians,” Jeung said.
But Asian Americans are still fighting discrimination and have done so in the past, Jeung added, pointing to Chinese Americans reacting to the Chinese Exclusion Act with mass boycotts, as well as Japanese Americans reacting to incarceration camps with lawsuits.
“Throughout history, Asian Americans have always resisted racism they faced.” Jeung said.
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Slug: Anti-Asian racism during pandemic part of a larger trend in history, fight against discriminatory legislation and actions continue
