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asian americans
Our Duty to Combat the Racism and Sexism Directed at Kamala Harris and Others
Racist and misogynistic verbal attacks on Asian American women leads to greater violence. It’s up to all of us to demand change.
Jul 29, 2024
No Asian American woman, regardless of political party or loyalties, is spared from being the target for anti-Asian, anti-immigrant racism and misogyny.
Now that Vice President Kamala Harris has entered the presidential race, the onslaught of racist and misogynistic attacks she has endured will surely only intensify. As the first Black American and first Indian American woman to serve in her office as Vice President, her eligibility to hold the office of the president is already being scrutinized.
And it certainly didn’t take long for members of the far right to focus their hate-fueled attacks on one of their own—the wife of Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Despite being a highly-educated, successful corporate litigator and mother, Usha Chilukuri Vance and her children have incurred the wrath of many online. For her Indian ancestry. For her faith. For the names given to her children.
I can’t say that it comes as any real surprise. We’ve seen it time and again, an experience common for both high-profile Asian American women, as well as everyday people in our communities. These kinds of racist, xenophobic attacks are not new and they are not exclusive to Vice President Harris or Vance.
We’ve seen it time and again, an experience common for both high-profile Asian American women, as well as everyday people in our communities.
This has held true for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Congresswoman Judy Chu, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and so many others.
We know that the vast majority of women in our communities report experiencing racism and discrimination. Yet, anti-Asian “jokes” continue to be a seemingly accepted mainstay of popular culture and politics. Too many people feel comfortable maligning Asian Americans and immigrants in the name of political gain.
The “model minority” myth is dangerous for many reasons. It not only has been used to create and deepen the divisions among Asian Americans and other people of color, but it also continues to harm Asian Americans within our own communities. It invisibilizes the lived experiences and realities that many Asian Americans face.
When we talk about Asian Americans, that includes more than 50 ethnic groups who speak more than 100 languages. It erases the experiences of Asian American women who are overrepresented in frontline and low-wage work and the millions of Asian American women who experience some of the widest wage gaps while also serving as caregivers to children and elderly family members.
We must continue to cast light upon the ways in which Asian American women are talked about, stereotyped, invisibilized, hypersexualized, and dehumanized.
The myth has also created the illusion that Asian Americans - if we work hard enough, if we don’t complain, if we align ourselves with white communities and people in power - can overcome being regarded as perpetual foreigners. Upholding the model minority myth can be tempting when you have been indoctrinated by a society with a history of pitting racial groups against one another. Being considered exceptional can provide perceived safety and belonging to people who want to build a life for themselves and their families.
But the model minority myth is a lie and for too many people in this country, Asian Americans will always be regarded as invisible, at best, and expendable or a threat, at worst.
Many of the attacks on Harris, Vance and other Asian Americans have been centered around the “Great Replacement Theory,” which has been accepted by many white nationalists as a conspiracy to replace white, Christians with people of color and immigrants. It is often described as an “invasion” and recently has been the underpinning of the way some people talk about the southern border or the influx of Indian immigrants into the U.S.
As a society, we cannot simply brush off verbal attacks and racist misogyny as acceptable speech. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw that racist rhetoric of the “China virus” contributed to increased violence and hate-induced attacks against Asian Americans, including the murders of six Asian American women in Atlanta, devastating the lives of their families and the communities in which they lived.
Acts of verbal abuse and violence lead to the acts of physical abuse and violence against members of Asian American communities. We must continue to cast light upon the ways in which Asian American women are talked about, stereotyped, invisibilized, hypersexualized, and dehumanized.
Working towards real systemic change in a world that recognizes and addresses the real harm caused by anti-Asian and racialized misogyny will take all of us speaking up against these kinds of attacks that have been allowed to go on for far too long.
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Treat Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Like a Public Health Crisis
Hate crimes threaten the health and wellbeing of individuals and by extension, the community, instilling fear based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and disability.
Jul 16, 2023
Where will the next punch land? A month ago, an Asian elder was punched while walking in Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles. In another incident, eggs and derogatory remarks were hurled at a group outside of the UCLA campus. It’s not just in California. States such as New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon are seeing a rise in crimes against the Asian community.
Reported crimes against the Asian community have increased 167% between 2020 and 2021, according to the FBI.That doesn’t count the many, many instances in which victims fear to report these incidents.
In the past 12 months, nearly three out of four Chinese Americans have experienced racial discrimination, and two in three feel a need to stay vigilant about hate crimes and harassment. As both a public health researcher and an Asian-American who has suffered such harassment, I believe we need to start treating racism as a new public health crisis, one that causes irreparable harm to the mental health of our community.
I recall the impact of hate all too well. As a child, classmates asked me whether I could see, because they said, “Your eyes are so small.”
Treating racism as a public health crisis starts with the recognition that racism affects our entire community, not just individuals. Focusing on policy and systems change must be heeded rather than focusing on punitive punishment against individuals.
I recall the impact of hate all too well. As a child, classmates asked me whether I could see, because they said, “Your eyes are so small.” In high school, a classmate told me regularly, “I want to beat your face” when I asked a question in class because I looked “annoying” to her. In my 20s, a group of men followed me, dispensing derogatory Asian slurs, while asking me to “get into their car for a little fun?”
If we wish to stop anti-Asian crimes, we cannot sit back and continue to be bystanders. We must address it head-on. This means:
1. Establishing Racial Justice Councils
During public health crises, public health departments often form special units or task forces to focus on the problem. If we treated hate crimes the same way, we would see more racial justice councils (RJCs), like those now emerging in Oregon, or through organizations like the Massachusetts chapter of the National Social Work Association.These councils support state legislators or other groups focusing on hate crimes by ensuring policies are driven by data and that recommendations are provided to the governor and state legislature on core racial issues, including criminal justice, housing, economy, health equity, education, and environmental justice.
RJCs are important steps toward building trust within the community, and toward holding leadership accountable by using data-driven resources. RJCs, like the one in Oregon, come from organizations and businesses who bring in a racial equity lens.
2. Passing Stronger Laws Against Hate Crimes
Hate crimes threaten the health and wellbeing of individuals and by extension, the community, instilling fear based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and disability. A key tenant within public health focuses on structural change—the passage of stronger laws against hate crimes will reduce fear while also demonstrating commitment towards protections for vulnerable groups.
Although 49 states have passed some sort of legislation on hate crimes, these laws are haphazard at best, depending on inconsistent definitions of hate crimes. Fortunately, states are beginning to pass stronger laws against hate crimes. For instance, Oregon recently passed laws granting hate crime victims paid leave and rental assistance. Michigan recently passed legislation to expand hate crime coverage to include protections based on sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, or physical or mental disabilities. If hate crimes were treated like a public health crisis, stronger responses like these new, more powerful laws, would become the rule.
3. Better Data Collection Methods
Data informs solutions for public health, by improving the health of populations as a whole. Likewise, we need consistent data on hate crimes. Even when states do have hate crime legislation, they do not track data equally. Currently, 18 out of those 49 states and territories that have laws in place do not require data collection on such crimes, according to the Justice Department.
Without proper data, it is impossible to quantify the volume of hate crimes. Inconsistent hate crime laws result in unjust court battles, unfair hate crime coverage, and insufficient efforts to address the crimes.
It’s true that there’s increasing awareness of hate crimes against Asian Americans, as evidenced by President Joe Biden signing the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act into law in 2021. The law makes it easier to report hate crimes, boosts public outreach, directs the Department of Justice to expedite hate crimes reviews, and increases funding for local and state governments for crime-reduction programs.
Despite all this, crimes against the Asian community have continued to increase dramatically. Treating hate crimes like a public health crisis would be an important step toward ending an epidemic that affects the well-being of everyone.
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Right-Wing Activists, Not Asian Americans, Killed Affirmative Action
Conservative legal strategists leveraged the Asian American community into their fight against affirmative action. The media continues to let them hide and evade blame.
Jun 30, 2023
The Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action yesterday led to a whole day of Asian American scapegoating. Across publications, the media consistently shared a narrative of Asian Americans as a population opposing affirmative action after feeling disadvantaged in the admissions process.
The New York Times painted public opposition to affirmative action as “a clear divide along racial and ethnic lines," with Asian American disapproval contrasted against Black American approval. One of the first headlines shared by The Washington Post posited that state affirmative action bans “helped Asian students, [and] hurt others,” not explaining until almost halfway through the article how the trend differed based on institution selection levels. A Wall Street Journal piece mentioned Asian Americans immediately calling college counselors, with one counselor stating the decision “will motivate a lot of students to reach even higher,” clearly correlating the decision with a satisfaction for the community’s educational aspirations. CNBC’s coverage contrasted strong support in the Black and Hispanic communities for affirmative action with a portrayal of lower support within the Asian community. To do so, CNBC misrepresented the Pew survey it draws from—the study shows that of those who are familiar with affirmative action, Asian adult support for affirmative action, at 53%, trails Black adult support by 8%, but leads Hispanic adult support by 17%.
But let’s be clear—not only is this narrative of Asian American opposition to affirmative action wildly oversimplified, it actively peddles harmful narratives about Asian American communities.
The media’s mirroring of SFFA messaging that all Asian Americans suffer from affirmative action is just continued peddling of the model minority myth: that Asian Americans are a successful monolith with high educational attainment, a narrative that drowns out disparities often faced by many Asian American ethnic groups.
The right’s decades-long push to ban affirmative action painted Asian Americans as the disgruntled victims of decades of admissions office bias. But the push didn’t start within the Asian community itself. White conservative legal strategist Edward Blum leveraged frustrated Asian American students and families into being represented by him and his organizations, Students for Fair Admissions.
Blum is no friend of the Asian American community, nor should his arguments about admissions be taken in good faith. His life’s work is to dismantle all laws which try to counterbalance against racism, especially anti-Blackness, in social systems. When he lost a Houston Congressional race in 1992, Blum blamed the shape of his district. Since then, he’s spent decades connecting would-be plaintiffs with far-right donors and lawyers to gradually disassemble anti-racism in the law. Shelby v Holder, the case which undid much of the Voting Rights Act, was him.
The suits against Harvard and UNC are just the latest in Blum’s decades of work to unravel affirmative action. After the failure of his previous attempt, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Blum said he “needed Asian plaintiffs,” which he recruited through websites claiming Harvard and UNC had unfairly denied Asian applicants just for being Asian.
But repeated surveys and data have proven that the majority of Asian Americans support affirmative action— AAPI Data’s 2022 Asian American Voter Survey notes that 60% of Asian registered voters support the policy. Moreover, while SFFA’s preferred narratives often focus on East and South Asian Students, Southeast Asian students continue to face barriers to higher educational attainment and consistently benefit from affirmative action. Asian Americans are not a monolith, much as SFFA wishes to portray it otherwise—and much as the media has done so in coverage of this issue.
Blum and SFFA have repeatedly leveraged misleading statistics amidst a years-long misinformation campaign about affirmative action, claiming it harms Asian Americans. The common message has been that other minorities, such as Black and Hispanic students, were “stealing their spots” at top universities because affirmative action was boosting others’ applications at the detriment of Asian American students. In fact, the decision even cites claims from SFFA, despite prior warnings and amicus curiae briefs from 678 social scientists and scholars studying the Asian American community that SFFA was engaging in significant misinformation efforts to warp the narrative on affirmative action.
What Blum’s suit, the myriad of opponents of affirmative action, and the Supreme Court decision all failed to acknowledge was how race-based affirmative action rebalanced the scales to correct for both centuries of banning and disinvesting in education in communities of color, and for the forms of affirmative action which privileged white students already enjoy— legacy admissions and donor preferences. In fact, 35% of self-identified white Harvard undergraduates had a family member who previously attended Harvard, according to a ProPublica investigation. The Supreme Court’s decision yesterday explicitly leaves legacy admissions intact.
But look to the media and you’ll often see a very different story. In its early coverage, the Times correlated the SFFA win with the outcome of elite institutions becoming “more Asian, at the harm of Black and Hispanic students.” The Times coverage still has not presented data on the views of the Asian American community writ large on affirmative action, implicitly consenting to the right’s false framework. In reporting since the decision, including from FiveThirtyEight, paragraphs are spent talking about Asian American attitudes against affirmative action, and Blum’s name is mentioned once or twice in the middle. CNN casts Asian Americans as taking “a central role in the debate over affirmative action, with opponents arguing the policies favor Black and Latino students over students of Asian descent, and hold Asian Americans to a higher standard for admission,” and doesn’t mention Blum in their coverage.
Most of the photos of demonstrators included in The Washington Post’s coverage of the decision have been of Asians in support of SFFA and banning affirmative action. Images that the Times has posted, including in their “The Morning” newsletter, show anti-affirmative action Asian demonstrators physically opposite Black and Hispanic protesters. This mirrors the divide which conservative groups have long sought to create between Asian Americans and other racial minorities, a wedge that these cases have already been accused of worsening.
It’s reporting like this that makes it seem like affirmative action is something most Asian Americans oppose. But actual survey data, again, clearly indicates the opposite. The media’s mirroring of SFFA messaging that all Asian Americans suffer from affirmative action is just continued peddling of the model minority myth: that Asian Americans are a successful monolith with high educational attainment, a narrative that drowns out disparities often faced by many Asian American ethnic groups.
But even more importantly, they’re doing exactly what Blum wants too. He’s not a lawyer, he’s a legal strategist who has used his political connections to repeatedly help launch legal attacks on civil rights. He’s made Asian American students, as a concept, the face of his campaign efforts, while keeping his own name out of the press. And now, he’s sowing divisions within the Asian community, to pit minorities against each other—all while he walks away, legal mission accomplished, evading the spotlight.
Mainstream media outlets must avoid complicity in that mission. Describing affirmative action as a matter of “Asian Americans vs. other people of color” facially misinforms the public; the real conflict, in literal terms, is between wealthy white right-wingers and everyone else.
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