July 20, 2022
The report finds AAPIs are most often faced with harassment and non-criminal incidents; demands elected officials take more deliberate action to address anti-AAPI Hate
Today, Stop AAPI Hate released a new report, Two Years and Thousands of Voices, which provides deeper insight into the racism and discrimination the AAPI community has faced since the start of the pandemic.
The report looks at the nearly 11,500 hate acts reported to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center between March 19, 2020 and March 31, 2022, and includes findings from a 2021 national survey Stop AAPI Hate conducted in partnership with Edelman Data & Intelligence.
Key findings of Two Years and Thousands of Voices include:
- Non-criminal incidents comprise the vast majority of the harmful hate acts that AAPI community members experience.
- Harassment is a major problem. Two in three (67%) of nearly 11,500 incidents involved harassment, such as verbal or written hate speech or inappropriate gestures.
- AAPI individuals who are also female, non-binary, LGBTQIA+, and/or elderly experience hate acts that target them for more than one of their identities at once.
- One in three (32%) parents who participated in the Stop AAPI Hate/Edelman Data & Intelligence survey were concerned about their child being a victim of anti-AAPI hate or discrimination in unsupervised spaces and on the way to school.
- Hate happens everywhere — in both large cities and small towns, in AAPI enclaves and in places where AAPI communities are few and far between.
“Our self-reported data shows that if you’re only watching the news, you aren’t getting the full picture of what AAPIs are experiencing,” said Russell Jeung, Ph.D., co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. “AAPIs are verbally harassed in grocery stores and shops, on the street and on public transit. We have a right to be treated with dignity and respect.”
The report also lays out Stop AAPI Hate’s approach to addressing anti-AAPI hate: education equity, community-driven safety solutions and civil rights expansion.
“Even as people move on past the COVID-19 pandemic, AAPIs continue to be harassed because of their race,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance. “The AAPI community is tired of being afraid. We want solutions that actually make a difference and focus on prevention.”
“While our focus is understanding hate against AAPI’s, we know that hate is on the rise for many groups including the Black, Latinix, Muslim, LGBTQ+ communities,” said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “It is why we need to work together to address root causes of racism and prevent incidents before they happen.”
Stop AAPI Hate is calling on elected officials to further their efforts to:
- stop the harassment of AAPIs and protect our civil rights by introducing legislation like No Place for Hate California, which will address hate where it happens: in spaces open and accessible to the public;
- educate the public about AAPI histories and cultures by making ethnic studies a standard part of the K-12 curriculum; and
- invest in community-based programs to support the healing of victims and survivors, and to prevent violence before it starts.
Hate acts included in the report point to the prevalence of harassment, and the need for elected officials to take action. Incidents have been edited for grammar, length and clarity:
“I was emptying my trash into a public trash can at a rest stop and a man walked towards me asked me where my mask was, shoved me back and said if anyone should be wearing a mask it is people like you. He mocked by pulling his eyes back to resemble slant eye and bowed to me.” (Marin County, CA)
“I walked into a discount store where I saw a woman conversing with another person; when she got in line at a register to purchase her food, she was stopped and the person working the register called her slurs, then a virus, and then refused to check her out.” (Westport, CT)
“A man called me a ‘c—k’ several times at the corner of ___ St and ___ Ave… He also started spitting at me and took his shirt off to try to fight me and my boyfriend.” — (New York, NY)
“A man came up to me on the DC subway and asked if I spoke English. When I ignored him, he pointed his finger in my face and said, ‘I’m talking to you.’ I nodded my head ‘no’ because I didn’t want to talk to him, and I thought if he thought I didn’t speak English, he’d go away. Instead, he sat down on the seat across from me and started yelling at me in front of the entire subway about how he couldn’t believe I didn’t speak English, what was I doing in the US, and that I must be a Chinese spy. This continued for a while. I was quite scared because he seemed unpredictable and I didn’t know if he’d try to push me off the train or follow me out. Nobody on the train said anything. When we got to DuPont Station, a bunch of people stood up to leave, and I felt safer to get up among a big crowd of people. I considered leaving the train but was worried he’d follow me out, so instead I ran to a different part of the car.” — (Washington, DC)
“Walking in front of our local college, a man yelled repeatedly across the street at me and my friend, ‘Watch out for Asian girls like them. Beware the red dragon.’” (Pasadena, CA)
“During the lockdown, I needed to go to the store, and a man stopped me in front of the store and started yelling at me, telling me this was my people’s fault. I am perceived as a Vietnamese woman and he kept calling me a Chinese pest along with many other slurs. I am non-binary but haven’t come out of the closet. He made comments about my haircut and how I looked like a d–e.” (Lubbock, TX)
“I am a part of the LGBTQ+ community so I was wearing a mask that showed love and support for the community. As I walked away, a woman proceeded to walk up to me and stop me. She looked me up and down and said, ‘Oh so you’re one of them?’ I was confused but then I remembered I had on the LGBTQ+ mask. I politely responded ‘Excuse me?’ She proceeded to say slurs that were both directed towards Asians and the LGBTQ+ community.” (Jeffersontown, KY)
The Stop AAPI Hate coalition encourages any member of the AAPI community who has experienced hate during the pandemic to report the incident at: https://stopaapihate.org/reportincident/.
Stop AAPI Hate is a national coalition addressing anti-Asian racism across the U.S. The coalition was founded by the AAPI Equity Alliance (formerly A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department. Visit stopaapihate.org.