Confronting the invisibility of anti-Asian racism
Dr. Jennifer Lee of Columbia University sheds light on the the invisibility of anti-Asian racism while advocating for comprehensive pre-college curricula teaching Asian American, Native American, African American and Latino American histories.
www.brookings.edu
Last week, a gunman opened fire in a Korean-owned hair salon in the Koreatown section of Dallas, Texas and shot three Korean women who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The police are now investigating this as a hate crime that may be linked to two other shootings of Asian-owned businesses in the area. Anti-Asian violence and racism have surged since the Atlanta massacre last year that left eight dead—six of whom were Asian American women—but many Americans still fail to notice.
According to a national survey by AAPI Data and Momentive, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased since the start of the pandemic: 1 in 6 Asian American adults reported experiencing a hate crime in 2021, up from 1 in 8 in 2020. In the first three months of 2022, the figure has already reached 1 in 12. This trend may continue given the rise in anti-Asian racism.
In the past year alone, 1 in 10 Asian Americans have been coughed on or spit on, and nearly 1 in 3 have been told to “go back to your country.” In the previous administration, it was easy to blame Trump, but we are in a new administration, and racist attacks against Asians have increased. One-third of Americans, however, continue to remain unaware.
The invisibility of anti-Asian racism is a reflection of the invisibility of Asians in the American imagination: 58% of Americans cannot name a single prominent Asian American, and 42% cannot think of a historical experience or policy related to Asian Americans.
It would be inconceivable to teach a course on race without including African Americans, and unfathomable to teach immigration without including Latino immigration. Yet we have taught—and continue to teach—courses on race that fail to include Asian Americans even while Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the country. We also teach courses on immigration that exclude Asian immigration even though Asian immigration has surpassed Latino immigration for more than a decade. Asians are the only group that is majority foreign-born, and Asian immigrants will outnumber Latino immigrants by 2055.
Take it elsewhere my guy
