Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press.
The number of attacks on the Asian-American community in the U.S. has grown suddenly, after President Donald Trump has maintained a negative discourse on China, so the number of incidents reached more than 2,700 in the last six months, when in previous years only 100 cases were recorded.
This was stated by Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the Asia-Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), who pointed out that this increase was registered after the hate speech by President Trump as soon as COVID-19 reached these shores.
The activist and lawyer also noted that the discourse shifted from political and economic issues to health issues, and by blaming the country for creating and hiding the virus, has led to racist incidents or even hate crimes against Asian people or people of Asian origin.
During a virtual meeting organized by Ethnic Media Services, entitled "The contagion of hate. The other virus of America", the expert stressed that, of the 2,700 reported cases, most are incidents and not hate crimes.
These incidents, he said, were reported in 46 states and the District of Columbia, with 56% of the cases occurring in California and New York.
He also pointed out that women in that community experience 2.3 times as many hate incidents as men, and 7.0% is against people over 60.
Kulkarni reported that 70.9% of incidents involved verbal harassment, 8.8% involved physical harassment, and 10% involved civil rights violations such as workplace discrimination and denial of services, among others.
While the ethnicity with the highest number of attacks was Chinese (40.8%), followed by Korean (15.4%).
The places where discrimination is experienced most often are varied, however, the surveys revealed that the highest number of cases (38.6%) occur in businesses such as stores, pharmacies, and restaurants, followed by public streets and sidewalks (21.0%), public parks (11.1%), the Internet (10.4%), private residences (9.5%), public transportation (9.2%), schools (3.6%), and universities (2.0%).
The rhetoric in these incidents encompasses a virulent antipathy toward Chinese Americans, as 60% involve profanity and verbal taunts; while 23% of the perpetrators blame China and its people as the source of COVID-19.
The activist pointed out that there is an anti-immigrant nationalism, as in 19% of the occasions that these hate incidents took place, the Asian-American victims were demanded to "go back to China".
Similarly, he said that there is a racist characterization because in 18% out of 789 incidents, perpetrators described China and its people as dirty, sick and having strange eating habits.
In turn, 14% of the cases involved racial slurs with words that were extremely insulting to the Asian-American community, calling them by words such as "chinks" or "chinaman".
Given the rhetoric of discrimination that exists in the world and an increase in supremacist groups, Manjusha Kulkarni considered that this hate violence against the Asian-American community could continue to be experienced for a decade.
For his part, Jhonatan Yang, executive director of the organization "Asian American Advancing Justice", said that the extremism that currently exists in the U.S. against Asian Americans is not a new issue, as it has always had to deal with it, however, currently the president's speech has made even between different communities there are clashes.
He added that hate speech has consequences because of the violent extremism that exists, as there have even been death threats to people in the community or to those who defend them.
However, he said, we must empower not only this ethnic group, but everyone so that there is support that can really confront the hate speech that prevails in the country, especially in these times when we are facing a pandemic, a situation that joins an election year.
In that sense, he invited to be part of those who protect others who are more vulnerable when they see that they are being victims of harassment, such as accompanying them to a safe place or to the next station if the aggression occurs on the train or on public transport.
In addition, if possible, put a verbal stop to those who are attacking or generating hate speech against a person, or generate some distraction that allows the victim to move away from the place where he or she is attacked.
"These kinds of actions (exacerbated violence against the Asian-American community) we're going to see over the next few weeks, and even if (Joe) Biden wins, they're not going to go away anytime soon. We can't let our guard down even though there may be a political change in the presidency," he added.
For Neil Ruiz, associate director of global migration and demographics at the Pew Research Center, he noted that, according to a study conducted by the research center, four in 10 Americans believe it is more common for people to express racist views about Asian people today than it was before COVID-19.
He added that Asian-American and African-American communities, more than any other ethnic group, have reported negative experiences because of their race since the coronavirus outbreak.
The study, he said, shows that "about half of Americans believe that President Donald Trump has made race relations worse."
Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Michael German said that during the current administration there has been an escalation in the number of supremacist organizations, however, there are no numbers because no investigations have been conducted.
However, he said, members of these supremacist groups have infiltrated police departments in several states and now serve as officers, "which is why many don't trust the authorities.
