LOS ANGELES—Since its official launch on March 19, 2020, the STOP AAPI HATE reporting center has received over 1,100 reports of coronavirus discrimination from Asian Americans across the country. The reporting center 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. Trends from week two can be found in the April 3rd report, linked here. They include the following:
● Stop AAPI Hate has received 1,135 reports in its first two weeks
● AAPI women are harassed at twice the rate of men
● AAPI children/youth are involved in 6.3% of the incidents
● Despite shelter-in-place policies being implemented across the nation, the number of discriminatory incidents remains high
● With shelter-in-place, a significant number of incidents are now taking place in grocery stores, pharmacies and big box retail
We encourage individuals who have experienced hate as a result of COVID-19 to continue to report at www.a3pcon.org/stopaapihate. The incident report form is now available in Vietnamese and Khmer, Vietnamese and Hindi as well as English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai, with Tagalog and a few additional South Asian languages coming soon. The lead organizations are working with public, private and other community-based organizations to develop targeted education and media campaigns, to provide resources for impacted individuals and to advocate for policies and programs dedicated to curtailing racial profiling.
“The flood of incidents related to anti-Asian hate–over 1,100 and counting–reflect the hostile environment that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders face during this pandemic. The data helps us respond to specific community needs and make targeted policy recommendations. These include providing mental health resources to bullied youth and ensuring that stores provide safe access for AAPIs to their goods and services.” said Russell Jeung, Ph.D., chair and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University.
“It’s disheartening to see such a high number of incidents, especially when we consider that much of the nation is sheltered-in-place,” stated Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON). Being targeted at grocery stores, pharmacies and in their neighborhoods adds an additional challenge for Asian Americans during this crisis. It makes basic tasks of everyday living– buying food, filling prescriptions and getting a little exercise– all the more difficult.”
“Our task ahead of us is to provide resources and information for impacted communities. We also need to mobilize community groups and to demand greater accountability from government agencies and leaders to address anti-Asian racism,” said Cynthia Choi co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA). “In times of crisis and longer term, we need to work alongside other communities that are targeted to get at the underlying causes of hate.”
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The Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON) is a coalition of more than forty community-based organizations that serve and represent the 1.5 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the greater Los Angeles area, with a particular focus on low-income, immigrant, refugee and other vulnerable sectors of the population.
Chinese for Affirmative Action was founded in 1969 to protect the civil and political rights of Chinese Americans and to advance multiracial democracy in the United States. Today, CAA is a progressive voice in and on behalf of the broader Asian American and Pacific Islander community. We advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial and social injustice.
