Asian Perspectives During COVID: Anti-Asian Violence
In April to June 2021, in collaboration with the UCSF Asian Health Institute and Asian Health Caucus, we sent out a survey to the Asian community (and thanks again to those of you who participated in our survey). Here is the first of our results! You can review our demographics in our first introduction post. You can review our subsequent post on: American media portrayal of Asians
In our survey, we asked respondents on whether they felt Anti-Asian violence increased and in a follow up question asked about their thoughts on anti-Asian violence in America.
All respondents agreed that there is an increase in Anti-Asian violence in America during COVID. The most prominent themes that people expressed were feelings of fear, discrimination, and not belonging. Many people also think the media plays a role in influencing violent behavior, especially towards Asian women. Additionally, people feel unheard or invisible as they feel the violence towards Asians is often neglected or is the norm especially prior to COVID.
What are your thoughts on recent anti-Asian violence and/or mass shooting in Georgia?
Themes on the Anti-Asian violence
From the 103 respondents that answered the question on violence towards Asians, we extracted a total of 10 common themes. We list some of the top themes below and in bold fonts connected themes mentioned.
Racism/Discrimination - 64 (62%) - Most respondents see violence against Asian as a form of racism and discrimination. They believe that the racism towards Asian has become more apparent during COVID. This theme intersects with the other themes especially misogyny towards Asian women (25, 24%) and poor media representation (32, 31%). For the Georgia mass shooting specifically many participants expressed anger at law enforcement (28, 27%) for minimizing the trauma felt by the victims and normalizing the shooter as having a “bad day”. However, not everyone felt that the violence, specifically towards the mass shooting in Georgia, was racially motivated. A minority of respondents thought race wasn’t a motivating factor (8, 8%). Some also saw this as another attribution to the gun violence (15, 15%) epidemic in America.
Asians are easy target or scapegoating - 63 (61%) - Most respondents felt that Americans view Asians as “easy to target”: when Asians are targeted they may accept this as reality and are afraid to report the event because they fear it may cause more issues. They also point out that elderly Asian women are often targeted because of misogyny towards Asian women and in particular, elderly Asian are at risk (5, 5%) due to language barriers and hesitancy to find help.
Increased feeling of fear and isolation in America - 50 (49%) - This theme is related to the feeling of being a ‘perpetual foreigner’ and a history of discriminatory violence that is often neglected. Respondents feel more fearful about being targets of racism/discrimination in America because they are Asians despite being multi-generational Americans themselves. Respondents cite poor media representation and lack of attention towards Asians (33, 33%) as attributing to fear of being an Asian-American in this country. Some participants also see their experience with white supremacy and racism/discrimination as solidarity through empathy of the disparities faced by other minority groups (7, 7%).
Lack of attention towards Asians - 33 (33%), and poor media representation of Asians - 32 (32%) were pervasive in the above themes. Lack of attention to problems faced by Asians seem to exacerbate racism/discrimination as policymakers may be ignorant of issue that fuels the feeling of “Asian invisibility”. Further, when there are attention towards Asians as in news or movies, respondents tend to think media attention seem to worsen the violence - this is linked to misogyny towards Asian women by media through of hyper-sexualization.
Select Quotes (click to expand)
+ Theme: Racism/discrimination
" With the former President calling Covid19 the Chinese virus, it is clear that some people blamed China for the disease. If so, it is understandable (and sad) that they wanted to strike back at what they believed to be the "source"."
" When it's a white person killing minorities, it's hardly news. It's mental illness, it's an illness. But when another minority hurts another minority, it's because of their race, their culture, their upbringing. Not enough attention was focused on the fact that this very bad person, who was white, decided to kill a whole group of people because of the way they looked and they are from. "
" Anti-Asian sentiment and violence has been on the increase. There has always been a tendency to harbor racist views of Asians. However, these have always been subtle. Now with the assigning of blame to China for the corona virus … racism is no longer subtle and out in the open."
" The negative stereotyping of Asian, particularly female has been such a common practices and everyone just laugh it off makes me mad. "
+ Theme: Asians are “targeted” and submissive - an object of projection. A scapegoat.
"It is terrible that this is happening. People are targeting Asians because as a group we are viewed upon as meek and non-confrontational. "
"It's basically dehumanizing an entire group of people and fail to grasp that these were actual people with lives and families that were murdered due to the failure of that racist domestic terrorist that no one wants to have sex with him."
" Asian is easy to be attacked because of the smaller body size. Asian is also timid and take whatever falls on them and they don't speak up. "
+ Theme: Increased fear, less feeling of belonging in America
"It is sad that Asian and Asian Americans are still seen as other, in a country that they have helped build and protect. "
" The news surrounds the mass shooting targeting Asian-Americans was appalling and brings up the growing hatred towards an ethnic group since the beginning of the pandemic. It has provoked anxiety, fear, and exclusion in me that I have never experienced being born and raised in America."
+ Theme: Desire for more attention to AA community. AAPI invisibility and gaslighting.
" It is very sad to hear and I still feel that Asian people don't have a very strong voice throughout the country."
"It makes me frustrated, and sad it is overshadowed by other shooting— more attention to AA community needed. "
"We need more publicity on action steps that individuals can take to fight back against AAPI Hate."
+ Theme: Bad media representation
"It is sad that when the media portrays COVID-19 as a WuHan virus, it has a negative effect on feelings towards Asian in general. "
"Very frustrating and annoyed how the media only briefly covered it, seems like it was forgotten quickly. "
+ Theme: Anger at defense of perpetuator or law enforcement
"We need to step up all enforcement of the law for all races. "
"It is ridiculous how someone can blame the conditions of their day or life and try to justify actions...There is no excuses for the evil acts one commits and everyone must be held accountable for their actions.> "
"The anti-Asian violence makes me very angry, especially the instances where an elder is involved. Targeting an elderly person for violence is disgusting and horrific, and it infuriates me how someone could be so hateful as to do something so cowardly. As for the shootings in Georgia, that also made me angry and sad because it felt like the media and law enforcement was minimizing the horror of what happened by focusing on the shooter's "bad day" and highlighting his perception that these women were sex workers just because they worked at a massage parlor. It shouldn't matter what their jobs were anyway--they were human beings and they didn't deserve to be murdered under any circumstances."
+ Theme: See misogynistic motivation
"This desire of the "oriental," mostly by white men, has made it so that Asian women are reduced to an image, a symbol, rendering the rest of their identity invisible. "
+ Theme: Gun violence issue
"Mass shootings are horrible in and of themselves, and I don't know how gun violence will ultimately be addressed in America. "
+ Theme: Increased Empathy Among Minority Groups
"I think it's scary and deplorable but unfortunately won't lead to significant change. The silver lining for me has been gaining more empathy for the Black community who have to endure state-sanctioned violence constantly."
+ Theme: “This is reality”
"Nothing new, nothing surprising. This is just the reality for us. "
+ Theme: Concern for Elders
"It's horrifying watching the incidents of violence towards Asians, especially watching the elderly being pushed down on the ground and suffering severe injuries/death."