The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was recorded on January 20, 2020.
Less than two weeks later in Los Angeles, a 16-year old boy in California’s San Fernando Valley was verbally harassed by bullies in his high school, accused of having the coronavirus simply because he was Asian-American. Upon being told to go back to China, the teen replied that he, in fact, was not Chinese. And from there the harassment escalated from verbal to physical assault, with the boy being punched in the head twenty times. Doctors had to later conduct and MRI to ensure the teen didn’t suffer a concussion.
With only 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus at the time—including eight in the entirety of California—the attack on an Asian-American high-schooler was a problematic and extremely troubling signal of things to come.
It was then that a coalition of Asian American groups in California—Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University—decided to band together to help stem the tide. They launched the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center—dedicated to collecting and tracking incidents of anti-Asian American and Pacific islander hate violence, adult harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying in California and throughout the country—on March 19, 2020.
“Right away,” recalls Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of A3PCON, speaking with Tribe Herald’s Abbie Yamamoto. “We began to get, really, hundreds of reports made by individuals largely who had experienced the hate themselves, and a few who had witnessed it firsthand. At this point, we’ve reached over 2,000 incidents that have been reported to us, taking place across forty-five states and the District of Columbia.”
In a stark sign of how violence against Asian Americans has increased recently, a typical year would generally see around 100 instances of hate crimes and incidents. Since COVID-19, that number has been surpassed more than 20 times over in just four months.
Several demographic patterns—some predictable, some disturbing—have emerged from the data collated by Stop AAPI Hate, as well.
Where there are higher Asian population, there are higher rates of incidents. 30.9 % of the Asian American population lives in California. Correspondingly, California makes up 40% of incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate. Overall, the amount of incidents trend proportionately to the presence of an Asian population. Individuals seen as more vulnerable tend to be targeted more, with women reporting incidents 2.5 more times than men, and the elderly making up close to 10% of the overall reporting population. A seemingly innocuous fact is that the number of reports has remained steady for these past few months and experienced no increase.
However, upon further scrutiny—as sheltering and Stay-At-Home policies have been in effect nationwide since March, only recently being lifted—it reveals a much more disconcerting reality.
“We’ve noticed some disturbing patterns, even with shelter in place,” Kulkarni notes. “50% of the incidents are taking place in private businesses. These are grocery stores, big box retail, pharmacies. Some of the few places that we can go under shelter in place are the places that really can cause harm to individuals and put them at risk for their safety and wellbeing.”
“Additionally, about 30% of the incidents are taking place in the public. On sidewalks, neighborhood streets, as well as public transit and parks. This, too, is concerning because we often think of our neighborhoods as safe places. Our neighbors look out for us, they care for us. But for many individuals the experience has been quite the opposite. They go out, they may take their child or grandchild on a walk, and find themselves victimized by someone that lives down the street, or someone driving by shouting racial epithets.”
“I think what we know and understand is that people are living with a lot of fear right now. I think we all are. This disease has ravaged many of our communities. Many of us know people who have had it. We know people who have unfortunately passed away because of it. Obviously, that fear doesn’t in any way justify any of [these incidents]. But what is happening is that you have elected officials who are using language that demonizes individuals, stigmatizes them, and places blame or scapegoats them for the disease, and they have nothing to do with it. And we’ve seen this so many times in terms of the Jewish community. This group culpability, where any one of us is held responsible for actions or behaviors that we have nothing to do with, either on an individual level or on a group level. And I think that’s what Asian Americans are facing right now.”
“Unfortunately, what we see with the President now, just in the last few days, repeating those epithets, referring to the virus as the ‘Kung Flu’—which no one else is calling it—we see that he’s actually putting people in harm’s way. A number of people, when reporting their incidents, have noted that attackers have evoked Trump, shouting things like ‘Trump 2020,’ as part of their assault. Out of the almost 2000 number of reported incidents, approximately 500 involve some form of racist language. So we know this language has an impact, and people are invoking it as they perpetuate violence against our community members.”
Anticipating an increase in the number of reported incidents as states open up, Kulkarni mused that this recent wave of Sinophobia is merely the latest iteration of the “Yellow Peril” that has historically and cyclically arisen in the United States—exemplified most infamously in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Asian Barred Zone established in the Immigration Act of 1917, and the WWII internment camps for Japanese Americans.
This instance, however, comes with its own unique concerns.
“In some ways,” Kulkarni says. “Almost 10 years later, we’re still living in the Islamophobic backlash post-9/11. Not only did it result in numerous hate incidents across that 10-year period, but also extremely problematic policies around surveillance and racial profiling. So we’re really concerned, when you look back at 9/11 and there were 3,000 fatalities, we are now at the 120,000 mark when it comes to COVID-19, and so we are likewise about what that might mean in terms of a backlash that could be with our communities for a very long time.”
But when it comes to dealing with the possible long-term effects of said backlash, law enforcement might not be the answer, the least reason for which being that many of the experiences of Asian Americans are not hate crimes, but hate incidents with no underlying inherent criminality. Of course, there is also the matter of law enforcement currently being under scrutiny.
“We are all living with white supremacy, in its various forms. One form is taken against Asian Americans, and a much longer lasting and more weaponized version of white supremacy has been used against our African-American sisters and brothers. So we all really need to be allies in this moment, to push back on police violence, as well as other types of systemic racism we’re seeing across our country, and seriously participating as allies and accomplices to improve conditions for all of us in our country.”