Stop AAPI Hate releases latest incident report and national survey about anti-AAPI hate
November 18, 2021 — Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition aimed at addressing anti-Asian discrimination, today released its latest national report of self-reported hate incidents alongside findings from a nationally representative survey on AAPIs’ experiences with hate, their top solutions, and concerns for school and work.
Stop AAPI Hate’s national report indicates that it has received a total of 10,370 reports of hate incidents against AAPIs across the U.S. between March 19, 2020 and September 30, 2021.
- Verbal harassment (62.9%) and shunning (16.3%) — the deliberate avoidance of AAPIs — continue to make up the biggest share of total incidents reported.
- A majority of incidents take place in spaces open to the public. Public streets (31.2% of incidents) and businesses (26.8% of incidents) remain the top sites of anti-AAPI hate.
- Hate incidents reported by women make up 62% of all reports.
To complement Stop AAPI Hate’s community-reported data, the coalition conducted a national survey in partnership with Edelman Data & Intelligence (DXI) and its data partner Dynata from September 21 to October 8, 2021. Among other findings, the survey found that one in five Asian Americans (21.2%) and Pacific Islanders (20%) have experienced a hate incident the past year — translating to over 4.8 million Asian Americans and 320,000 Pacific Islanders.
The survey also found that communities surveyed ranked the top solutions to addressing anti-Asian hate as education (52.8% for AAs and 57.5% for PIs), community-based solutions (49.7% for AAs and 57.5% for PIs) and civil rights legislation/enforcement (46% for AAs and 40% for PIs).
Other findings include:
- AA respondents with a high school education are experiencing twice the rate of hate incidents (41.2%) compared to those with at least some college education (19.8%) and those with a BA or higher degree (13.8%).
- One in three AA parents (30.6%) and PI parents (31.4%) report that their child experienced a hate incident at school.
- 31.5% of AA and 26.4% of PIs report experiencing a hate incident at work.
“It’s tragic but not surprising that Asian Americans with lower education levels are experiencing more hate,” said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “Anti-Asian hate is tied to systemic racism against our community. Stopping hate is not about quick fixes like law enforcement but about deeper investment in our communities.”
“When it comes to stopping anti-Asian hate, our elected leaders should be responsive to the Asian American community,” Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. “Locally and nationally, they must make real investments in civil rights, community resources and education.”
“The levels of Asian American children experiencing hate in school is devastatingly high,” said Russell Jeung, Ph.D., co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. “There needs to be an urgent push toward incorporating solutions that promote racial understanding in schools, including through investment in Ethnic Studies.”
Among other policy solutions, Stop AAPI Hate advocates for ethnic studies to promote racial empathy and solidarity, community-based safety solutions that increase a sense of safety as well as build solidarity with other communities, and ensuring the civil rights of AAPI communities.
“We partnered with Stop AAPI Hate because good public policy and effective social mobilization must be informed by the lived experiences and expectations of the communities suffering from persistent anti-Asian discrimination and violence,” says Joshua Wu, a vice president from Edelman DXI who co-led this research.
Stop AAPI Hate received reports of incidents from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They include the following first-hand accounts:
My family and I went to sit near open seats on the subway, and a man sitting there started yelling, “Coronavirus” at us and screaming at us to get away from him. When I stepped away, but didn’t walk to the other side of the train, he got up to come toward me and kept yelling at me, calling me a b—–h, and yelling that we didn’t understand English. Eventually, when we moved to the other side of the train, he left us alone. (New York City, NY)
I was on the subway when an unmasked person approached me and spat on me twice. When I confronted him about it, he called me a c—k and put his two fingers next to his eyelids and did the squinting gesture to mock my small eyes. There were other people on the train, all of them masked, but I was the only Asian person there and the only one to be spat on and verbally insulted. (Los Angeles, CA)
I was on my university campus and leaving one of my classes, which was held in a large auditorium-style room. I waited for most of the crowd to leave first. When I was in the doorway, a guy came up from behind, shoulder-checked me into the wall, and called me a “Chinese b—h” over his shoulder. (Knoxville, TN)
I had never experienced this type of racism toward me. A bunch of girls from my school messaged me saying, “Go back to China. Your eyes are weird and ugly. You don’t belong here, c—k.” (Stillwater, MN)
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/.
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Stop AAPI Hate is a national coalition addressing anti-Asian racism across the U.S. The coalition was founded by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department. Between March 19, 2020 and September 30, 2021, Stop AAPI Hate has received 10,370 reported incidents of racism and discrimination targeting Asian Americans across the U.S. Visit stopaapihate.org.
