Anti-Racism Memo Highlights Predicament of Asian Americans

US President Joe Biden recently signed a memo which condemned racism against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. He demanded all departments and organizations of the federal government to take appropriate measures to crack down on and prevent racist behaviors towards Asian Americans.

Analysts stated that, for a long time, Asian Americans suffered from exclusion, discrimination, and bullying in American society due to their relative small population and political influences. That the new US government specifically signed a memo regarding racist behaviors against Asian Americans indicates this problem has become more severe with the epidemic.

Asians encountering more threats and hatred

"I've never felt hostility to this degree," Kimberly Ha, an Asian American who lives in New York, said in a recent interview. She said that when she walked on the streets of New York recently, a stranger yelled at her: "Get out of this country!"and others were angered by her Asian appearance.

Ha's experience is an epitome of the plight of Asian Americans. Many Asians who have lived in America for a long time told reporters that after the outbreak of the pandemic, they experienced evident racial discrimination, which generated a helpless panic and made them feel they are living in an unprecedented predicament.

Since the outburst of the pandemic, out of political interests, some American politicians wantonly shifted responsibilities, incited and facilitated xenophobic emotions, which worsened the situation of Asians.

American NGO "STOP AAPI HATE" (AAPI: Asian American Pacific Islander) received more than 2,800 reports of Asians encountering racial discrimination and hostility from March to October in 2020. Reports revealed that from verbal harassment to cyber bullying, and even to violent assaults, Asian Americans experienced all forms of menace and hatred.

For instance, in February 2020, a 16-year-old Asian boy in Los Angeles was falsely accused of being a "virus carrier" at school and got beaten. On April 5, an Asian woman living in Brooklyn, New York, was splashed with an unknown chemical liquid by a racist individual while taking out garbage. Her upper body, face, and hands were all heavily burnt.

An FBI report showed that, during the pandemic, hate crimes against Asians were rising across the US. A UN report from last October also indicated that hate crimes against Asians in America reached an astonishing level.

Being labelled adds to "invisible discrimination"

An article from The New York Times stated that, although Asians, who account for 5.4% of the US population, are often labelled as a "model minority", in reality, this group has been in a weak position in American society for a long time. While "model minority" sounds complimenting, such labeling is an "ethnic shield" which separates Asians from other minorities, and will only foster "invisible discrimination" against Asians in American society.

Last October, the United States Department of Justice indicted Yale University, accusing it of discriminating against Asian applicantss in the undergraduate recruitment process, and viewing ethnic identity as a "decisive factor in recruitment decision-making". This is against the Civil Rights Acts of the United States. Another prestigious university, Harvard University, was also criticized for discriminating against Asians in its recruitment process.

Last October, USA Today reported that in San Francisco, Asian Americans had the highest mortality rate from the COVID-19 pandemic in all local ethnicities. However, since Asian Americans give the impression of being "affluent, healthy, and active in the upper class" in American society, the US government always overlooks housing, employment, medical, and other welfare considerations for Asians. Nor did it provide sufficient aid in detection and treatment during the pandemic.

Judy Yang, executive director at the San Francisco NGO "Southeast Asian Development Center" states: “The Asian community is small. So when we encounter problems, this city fail to notice us at all.”

A column from The New York Times named racism against Asians as a "spiritual plague", and states: "What is worrying is that this new round of racism will cause America to regress to the era of the 'yellow peril', when they regarded Asian immigrants as threats to Western people’s job opportunities and to Western civilization."

Translated by Zhang Junye