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Anit-Asian Hate Crimes During Covid-19 Pandemic Leading To Inequality
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Abstract
Coronavirus pandemic outbreak in the late end of 2019 in the city of Wuhan in China quickly engulfed the whole world during the spring seasons in the year 2020. Americans reported a racial increase in motivated hate crime, the inclusion of harassment and physical abuse as the pandemic spread throughout the States of America. Problems related to such a pandemic are connected to the “othering” isolation of Asian peoples’ heritage throughout the years. Anti- Asian also encountered physical and verbal abuse bolstered by personal racism and xenophobia since their arrival in America during the late 1800s. Moreover, the state has frequently indirectly supported, perpetuated, and encouraged violence through discrimination utterance and exclusionary policies. Coronavirus has aided the increasing spread of general xenophobia, national insecurity, racism, and fear of foreigners, all of which could be connected to the rise in hate crimes in times of the epidemic in anti-Asian people (Lee, 2021). We research how well these acts, which are deeply embedded in long-standing and interconnected at personal and organizational xenophobia, prejudice, and racism, were used to “other” Americans who were Asian and continue to cause discrimination.
Literature review
Recent scholarly journals, books, and articles have shown how abuse of Asians at the coronavirus outbreak remains a part history of prejudice against the population of Asians living in the US. Asians in America are sometimes referred to as outsiders, anti-Americans, who spread diseases. Racist beliefs that Asians brought coronavirus to the United States have grown as a result of these misconceptions. Furthermore, preconceptions about Asians in Americans often fail to recognize the diversity of ethnic groups. As a result, anti-Asian ferocity perpetrators see Asian people as alien and hostile, despite “…the individual is from China, of Chinese heritage, or just appears Asian…”, placing Asian people susceptible to hate crime (Tessler et al., 2020).
Research experts have also demonstrated how policymakers and the mainstream press contributed to perpetuating the misconception that coronavirus was transmitted by China and, by extension, the people of China. For example, the pandemic was dubbed the “Wuhan Virus” by Trump, the former president. At the same time, the people in his cabinet referred to it as “the virus of “Kungfu” while they were in office. By citing coronavirus with the country of China or juxtaposing pictures of Chinese people next to headlines on the pandemic, mainstream news media often impliedly linked COVID- 19 to China. According to Darling-Hammond and other scholars (2020), press media coverage and public leaders’ words contributed to the stigmatization of Asians throughout the pandemic.
Throughout California, Asians have experienced structural racism and other forms of discrimination based on stereotypes that present Asian people as un-American and spread of various diseases. Chinese immigrants were accused of excessive unemployment, low wages, and invaders of the United States during the mid19th Gold Rush of California. As a consequence of persisting beliefs acquired during the Gold Rush, the American State barred Chinese workers’ citizenship and immigration following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Monterey County passed anti-Filipino resolutions in January 1930 to limit Filipinos’ employment possibilities to payment. White people assaulted Filipinos that month in Watsonville town, abusing and maiming many Filipino inhabitants. The public health leaders in San Francisco attributed the outbreak of smallpox to the inhabitants of San Francisco in the year1886. During 1900, the government of San Francisco imposed various measures on the movement of passengers and goods into and out of Chinatown, an assumption that the town inhabitants were accused of such the bubonic plague. In response to the Japanese abuse, Roosevelt instituted Americans who were Japanese to form concentration camps. Two of these “camps were created in California to house Japanese who were Americans. Today’s racism and prejudice of anti-Asian stereotypes are founded on tropes and preconceptions established in earlier centuries (Gover et al., 2020). Anti-Asian sentiments rooted in past state-sanctioned discrimination linking Asian people to illness and alien identity are at the basis of most of the anti-Asian attitudes and prejudice promoted even during coronavirus outbreaks.
Understanding Hate Crime
The word hate crimes are classified as forms of rimes that reveal indications of discrimination based on gender identity, race, handicap, religion, ethnicity under the Crime Hate Statistics body. Since the breakout of the pandemic in Wuhan, an increase of Asian Americans registering racially based crimes of hate has occurred in the United States. On the other hand, some incidences of bias and hatred directed towards minority groups come under the statutory denotation of abuse but are classed as “incidents of hate “or prejudiced actions that are not serious enough to be considered a crime (Gover et al., 2020). This study focuses mostly on hate crimes against anti-Asians, including criminal violet assault or persecution; we also consider research and press media portrayals of “hate crimes” from anti-Asians involving verbal abuse or microaggressions and crimes involving violence.
Hate crime legislation varies significantly across different jurisdictions and states, and it is described to cover a variety of discriminatory reasons that typically result in increased penalties (Learn About Hate Crimes, 2021). For example, suppose an offense is classified as a hate crime and earns punishment intensification under the state’s laws. In that case, the prosecution must establish that prejudice was an element of “substantial ” in the perpetrator’s motive for the crime committed against an individual of a protected group. On the other hand, bias may be an “incidental element” in commissioning a hate crime under federal hate crime legislation.
In previous years, the Asian hate crimes statistics have increased. Although hate crimes and other types of prejudice are not new to the AAPI community, the increase in hate crime instances – whether recorded or not – is alarming. The COVID- 19 virus is mostly to blame for the rise in hate crimes since other races associate it with Chinese or Asian people.
In the last several months, reports of abuse or assaults against Asian people have ranged from persons being spit on, having their faces cut, being beaten up, or being killed in cold blood. Due to a lack of reporting or evidence, most hate crimes go unreported or unsolved. Although Asian Americans are classified as a model minority, this does not imply they are immune to prejudice on a daily basis.
People see Chinese are targeted simply because of their ethnicity, even if they have never visited China. Therefore, people who identify as Chinese or Asian are confronted with an enemy just as lethal as the coronavirus: racists. People of Asian heritage are grouped and discriminated against, regardless of whether they are from the Philippines, Myanmar, or Brunei. Even in their homes, some Asians must remain vigilant since they may be assaulted at any moment. This collection of Asian hate crime cases gives a vivid picture of modern-day prejudice.
Understanding the Data
The federal government is required under the Act of Hate Crime of 1980 to collect statistics on crimes racially motivated, religion, sexual preference, or ethnicity. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Statistics Bureau of Justice (BJS) Nationwide Victimization Crime Survey (NCVS), two of the nation’s primary sources of crime statistics (Masucci & Langton, 2017), were given hate crime national estimates. The sources use the federal government’s explanation of hate crime. Advocacy groups that aid disadvantaged populations also collect hate crime statistics. All of these data sources have several drawbacks.
The data collection bodies were used in this analysis since they are the most comprehensive population and good at representing the population. Comparing hate crime statistics from the UCR and NCVS bodies across a period of 15 years is the most recent years for which both sources had data. Both sets present information on yearly hate crime statistics based on race. The UCR body allows breaking down the counts by the sort of prejudice basis of race that motivated the crime, while the victim’s race may break down the NCVS figures. Sine the NCVS body is predicated on a population; thus, it must combine multiple data years to obtain the appropriate sample size for valid hate crime for anti-Asian statistics. UCR counts of crime rates were estimated using data from the FBI’s Statistics Program of Hate Crime website, while estimates of the NCVS body were derived using data from the Criminal Justice Data’s National Archive public-use data files.
When analyzing the findings, readers should bear in mind the significant differences between the data obtained by the DOJ and data collected and published by other agencies and the mainstream press. To begin with, the data given to the Justice Department only covers hate crimes, which are criminal offenses motivated by hatred. Hate events, which are inspired by bigotry and other acts of discrimination, are not included in the data gathered by the DOJ and evaluated in this study. Second, hate crime incidents are classified according to the bias motive used in the incident. In other words, if a person is committing a hate crime against a Pacific Islander person, but the LEA judges, based on the circumstances of the case, that the event was motivated by prejudice towards persons of Asian heritage, the crime will be recorded as anti-Asian bias (Roberto, Johnson & Rauhaus, 2020). Third, a person having ancestors from any of the Southeast Asia’s, or Far East’s, Indian subcontinent’s indigenous peoples are defined as Asian for data reporting reasons and in conformity with federal standards and definitions. Fourth, the data examined in this research pertains to hate-motivated criminal offenses that were detected to a Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) and then submitted to the DOJ by the responding LEA.
Who Are the Perpetrators of Asian Hate Crimes?
When an Asian hate crime is mentioned, many instinctively assume that a white guy causes the oppressed person’s pain. However, the Hate and Extremism Center for the Study evaluated data from the New York Police Department and found the opposite. According to their data, eleven of the twenty perpetrators of Asian hate crimes were African Americans, with just two being white.
This conclusion may surprise some, given that white people are often viewed as aggressive and irrational. However, this research suggests that, like Asians, white people are exposed to stereotype unfairness. What’s more startling is that more than half of those arrested in connection with Asian hate crimes belong to a racial community that has long been subjected to racial prejudice (Roberto, Johnson & Rauhaus, 2020).
The results may seem ridiculous for some, but it is essential to remember that racism may take various forms. It isn’t only restricted to a certain set of individuals. Even people who seem to be innocent or who would sympathize with another group’s suffering might be judged guilty of racially motivated hate crimes. However, this should not prove that all African Americans are Asian hate crime offenders. When, in reality, some African Americans are among those who have opted to fight back against the racism directed against Asian people.
Integrated Threat Theory
According to the theory, discrimination and race bias is the outcome of individuals from an in-group with unfavorable attitudes against members of out-group but not really as a result of a single cause, as Research from Allport explained. One of the explaining explanations for these bad sentiments or enmity is threat perception. Negative stereotypes emerge as defensive mechanisms when in-group members believe their values or views are being threatened by the out-group, according to Stephen’s research (2000).
Stephan (2000) created a threat theory integrated into the response to Allport’s bias studies on Integrated Threat Theory (ITT). According to the theory, the face of enormous challenges, symbolic threats, inter-group anxiety, and negative perceptions are four categories of dangers that tell us through predicting negative beliefs toward the minor groups (Croucher, 2013). Intergroup sentiments of danger and dread, according to ITT, lead to bias and discrimination. The critical framework to ITT is that the impact does not have to be actual; only the impression of a cause is sufficient for the in-group to develop and display hateful attitudes, bias, and hostility toward the out-group.
Realistic abuse and threats are tied to out-group, and in-existence are feared. Realistic risks to in-welfare, a group’s economic and social power, and physiological and material well-being are all highlighted as hazards. Furthermore, according to Stephan and Stephan (2000), whether the danger is genuine, actual threats lead to bias. These dangers come when individuals of the in-group member believe the out-group is giving threats to their “way of life” views. As beliefs in cultural differences indirectly impact morale toward the out-group.
The in-preconceptions group levels about the out-group are referred to as negative stereotyping. These hypotheses are implicit risks to the in-group since members are typically fearful of negative impacts while connecting (Croucher, 2013). For example, if in-group members believe out-group members are deceitful or antagonistic, they will predict unpleasant encounters with them. Consequently, individuals of the in-group may dislike people of the out-group. Furthermore, when the out-group members’ Negative stereotypes occur on Twitter and other social media, stereotyping is about social groups partitioning constituting one sort of media material. As a result, social media usually reinforces bias.
Theory of othering
Othering is a literary term that refers to a dominating class marginalizing another class that is not dominant. The theory of othering, which stems from prejudice and fear, through a systematic process of labeling who differs from themselves (Kim & Sundstrom, 2014), in which the racial group with more power in the society of America or the group that thinks they have “civic connection ” stigmatizes and distances racial individuals. Othering also reinforces the perceptions of dominant groups their own “normalcy” while giving labels to those who are unique as deviant via a long history of disempowerment, social exclusion and marginalization
Asian Americans and Their Historical Othering
Asians were forecast to number 22.2 million in the United States in 2018, and they are expected to emerge as the country’s biggest group of immigrants by 2055. Asians are the rapidly growing racial group in the American States, expanding by 72% in the last 15 years. (Lopez, Ruiz, & Patten, 2017). Recent studies demonstrate that Asian who are American voters hold a strong voice in crucial political battleground areas, and patterns show that they have voted progressively Democratic in recent elections. The number of Asian livings in American democratic and elected politicians have also increased significantly (Zheng, 2019).
Experiences of Early Asian Immigrants
Established civic organizations in the United States have always harbored hostility against incoming waves of immigration. From a historical point of view, all groups of immigrants other than the established white, English speaking, American Protestant dominant have faced skepticism as they struggled to secure their position within society America progressively (Lee, 2021). It is quite unfortunate this nativist mindset (inextricably linked to xenophobia) has mirrored organizations racism in numerous ways, including restrictive laws federal immigration and authorized racial exclusions and quotas, many especially were threat immigrants. Furthermore, violent racist assaults on Asian populations by the majority of white groups across the history of America, particularly throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, show the societal perpetuation in xenophobic worldview in the United States certain period (Kil, 2012).
In the early 1890s, a fresh surge of Asian immigrants, mainly from Japan, arrived to work in agricultural, fishing, forestry and service factories. White animosity and requests for exclusion of Japanese legislation quickly followed, culminating in an act known as “The Gentleman’s Agreement” with the United States and Japan in 1908. Japan promised to restrict the additional immigration of laborers to the United States. Many spouses, children parents of contemporary residents of Japanese, on the other hand, were permitted to relocate, during the time of racial separation in the United States, families from Japan banded together to form enclaves around the Western part of coast Japanese and Korean arrivals, like the Chinese before them, encountered racist legislation restricting property ownership, citizenship, and education, culminating in a 1934 modification to the “Exclusion Act of Chinese” that barred residents of any Asian country from immigrating to the United States (Lee, 2021). Until 1943, this anti-Asian legislation was in effect.
The mid-19th century of Rush in California Gold attracted the first substantial influx of Asian immigrants to the US, referred to as Chinese gold prospectors. Unfortunately, most of them did not live up to their overly optimistic profit projections. Since they were reluctant to move back to China and were made to hunt for jobs with white men “forty-niners” who lived in the eastern United States, these workers were scapegoats for white men migrant job frustrations. Asian immigrants struggled and lived in poor circumstances, making them work for less than white colleagues in perilous mining projects and the construction of railways. During this period, Chinese workers were subjected to institutional racism from the US government, which manifested in excessive tax problems and legislative impediments to citizens.
Furthermore, when Chinese refugees came to the US to be part of the Gold Rush, they took opium with them and ultimately built dens opium in Chinatowns across the West areas. As a result, many Americans grew hooked to the substance, resulting in a nationwide drug scare (Kil, 2012). These events of historical abuses culminated in the act of 1872, which was the top legislative edict prohibiting the whole ethnic community from immigrating or becoming eligible for citizenship in the United States. The Act was fueled mainly through xenophobic racial anxieties among white working-class employees over low pay, which were reinforced by media coverage of “Chinese invasion” rhetoric. This is only one instance of the “hordes of foreign invaders” cliche exploited to promote various political goals throughout American history.
Late-nineteenth-century Chinese American groups reacted to housing separation rules by establishing towns of China in popular United States cities. They founded organizations governing them to ensure order in the community. Instead of suffering racial discrimination in gold mines and industries, many Chinese employees employed themselves in hotels, retail stores, and cleaning businesses (Shah, 2001). Unfortunately, numerous settlements were subjected to a wave of violent, murderous assaults by the white majority, which occasionally resulted in inhabitants being chased out of town and their houses being set on fire.
After Japanese victories in the “Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars” around the end of the century, a “yellow peril” stereotype arose in the United States, depicting Asians of all races, both foreign and domestic, as frightening agents bent on world control (Shah, 2001). This poisonous stereotyping portrayed Asian Americans as murderous, cunning outsiders who could not be respected similarly to that other Americans could be appreciated. Even as War started, the myth of the yellow peril prepared a position for the next transition stage of the American administration’s discrimination against Asian people.
Prison Camps in Japan
Roosevelt, the president at the time, signed a law that allowed the removal of all Japanese immigrants in the US after attack on Pearl Harbor later two months ago in September 1931, against what is today regarded one of the most horrific abuses of constitutional protections in history American. Approximately 150,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into detention camps ringed by barbed wire and protected by uniformed military soldiers, with just what they could carry (Gover et al., 2020). Anyone with 1/16th Japanese heritage or more was considered a possible danger and may be deported. Ironically, the US military at Honolulu had placed their aircraft in a local place for security purposes, rendering the airplanes “sitting-ducks” in case of airstrikes by Japanese bomb rack owing to xenophobic hysteria American fear who were Japanese sabotage. Despite widespread prejudice towards Asian Americans in the broader community at the time, many Asian American troops of various ethnicities enrolled and fought valiantly throughout the War.
After the Act of Immigration (1965), which advocated removing race as a barrier to relocation, Asian refugees began to flood again into the United States. Throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century, new camps of East Asian immigration flooded the United States. As the process of assimilation of these new groups into American culture began, a new caricature emerged: the ” minority model ” myth. This model stereotyping supports the idea that Asian living in America is a homogenous class that has achieved tremendous prosperity in American culture due to strong work, natural brilliance, and ethics, and emphasizing the value of schooling and accomplishment among their family members (Chou & Feagin, 2015). Compared to other Americans, such an apparently optimistic portrayal of a whole race conceals a pessimistic dynamic of continually demoting Asian in America to a perpetual outsider position which is the theory of othering. Furthermore, this stereotyping contributes to a conviction that America is free of racial discrimination by implying that all ethnic groups compete pretty, with the most dedicated workers climbing to the top on their initiative, sharing equal advantages, and not being handicapped by other discriminatory ideas actions. Finally, this misconception generates mistrust and hatred towards the Asian population and refugees.
Pandemics and Stigmatization
Infectious illness has had a catastrophic impact on humankind throughout history, killing more people than any medical reason. Unfortunately, the outbreak of xenophobia has happened in the aftermath of coronavirus. Fear frequently causes individuals who are in danger to blame “the other,” or a group outside of their own national, or ethnic identity, religious, especially when virus epidemics are lethal. Sickness breeds fear, which results causes prejudice. Taylor (2019), insiders who consider minority groups to be or “sickly” or “dirty” have frequently falsely accused them of spreading diseases. As a state founded by the influx of new refugees, new arrivals to the United States have long been subjected to othering theory in the type of carelessness and quilt for various ills in society. Specifically, Irish Catholic immigrants have been blamed for “Irish illness,” Jewish immigrants have been blamed for bringing tuberculosis, and Irish and German arrivals have been condemned for bringing yellow fever.
The coronavirus epidemic is not the first time Asian Americans have been given names and treated harshly due to a public health disaster. When the “bubonic plague” struck San Francisco in 1800, authorities in charge of public health used a race-based strategy, isolating Chinese residents in Chinatown but allowing white merchants to leave. (Lee, 2021). More recently, during the SARS outbreak of 2004, Asians from the East were demonized all across the globe. Despite being made up of drapery of numerous ethnicity groups, American Asian were regarded as a monolith in times of economic stability and peace, labeled by the notion of the minority model, and others referred to as scapegoats during the economic recession, pandemic, or during wars period.
Hate Crimes’ Psychological Consequences
Racist victimization and poor mental health problems have a connection. Since the release of the virus, the statistics of persons visiting the mental health hospitals in America concerning screening tests has shot by 25% overall Among the patients, American Asian replies had a 39% increase. According to research, hate crimes victims endure more severe effects than non- hate crimes victims. According to Mellgren, Andersson, & Ivert (2017), racism has a distinct impact on victims than those non-bias incidents. Sufferers of prejudiced crimes are more terrified and have impertinent thoughts after being harmed.
Response at the Institutional Level
Federal Reaction Congress proposed a solution in the final week of March 2020, calling on all elected leaders to denounce anti-Asian prejudice. In addition, the resolution asked national law enforcement authorities to gather, record, and carry out investigations on hate crimes relating to the epidemic. Finally, congress urged the nation to form multi-agency remedy teams to address coronavirus-related racial prejudice in terms of fair employment, access to retail services, and high-quality mental health services in schools for Asian living in American children and all other people who were touched by the effects of the pandemic.
Whereas numerous Asian populations praised Trump’s statement on March 24th inversion on the use of the phrase “Chinese virus” and his pleasing replies about Americans Asians, proponents are still going to wait for a real response from the national govt, such as the formation of a Department of Justice Task Force to resolve racist attacks against Asians. When president Tramp on action he was taking to combat anti-Asian hate crimes in the nation during a White House news conference on the epidemic on March 26th, Trump said he did not know.
Apart from the White House’s lack of response, the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done little to tackle the pandemic. The CDC has already moved rapidly to avoid racist violence during the 2003 SARS epidemic (which was significantly less common and lethal than coronavirus), and the Department of Justice promptly acted after the 2002 terror attacks. Nevertheless, a group of 12 senators in the United States wrote to the United States Civil Rights Commission asking for official guidance on the national response, lamenting the lack of action: federal agencies have not made a concerted effort to combat and address anti-Asian sentiment concerning the coronavirus pandemic. Eric Dreiband, who was Assistant Attorney General, responded by saying that hate crimes will be punished to the fullest degree possible.
State Reaction
County authorities held a press conference on March 14, 2019, in reaction to a recent rise in verbal assaults and other forms of racial events against Asian living in America in California, criticizing racist acts against the Asian society tied to anxieties about coronavirus. Officials advised the people not to believe stereotyping comments and falsehoods about Asians. In addition, James, the New York Attorney General, created a state helpline for recording hate occurrences and hate crimes in reaction to an upsurge in abuse and physical assault aimed at Asian Americans as a result of coronavirus.
Remedy action and Recommendation
Even though a lengthy history in America and the increasing figures and political clout, Asian living in American groups is still main target to a cycle of othering theory. Personal based opinions and acts against Asian living in Americans may be damaging and exclude them from having sense of belonging incase xenophobia and racism and are topic of discussion. Racially dominant and well-equipped power groups in America have hated the entrance and existence of less well-off and powerful groups such as Asian Americans, seeing them as “outsiders,” aliens who have robbed them of their “right” place of belonging and a danger to the community and nation. (Kim & Sundstrom, 2014). These nativist and xenophobic views are intrinsically tied to racism, from which those in positions of political power fear and condemn others who look different, speak a different language, or follow different cultural traditions. As a consequence, Asian Americans have historically othered through prejudiced exclusionary behaviors and violence, which has served to perpetuate their outsider and marginalized position as well as the ethnic and nationalist hierarchy.
Human Rights Watch recommends authorities take urgent measures to avert xenophobic and racist prejudice and violence in the wake of the Coronavirus epidemic and pursue racial offenses against Asian ancestry people. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the pandemic releases a tsunami of hatred and xenophobia, demonization, and scaremongering, encouraging governments to act urgently to improve the community’s immunity against the hate that comes with the virus. Physical violence and racism against people of Asian origin have increased as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, and government authorities must act quickly to stop this trend; outreach programs should be expanded and educated, promote tolerance, oppose hate speech, and vigorously investigate and punish hate crimes,” says the report.
The United Nations board in charge of overseeing compliance with the Committee on eradication of All types of Discrimination Against Women, 182 countries signed that, has recommended governments to develop “action plans against race prejudice.” Plans should include specific tactics for combatting racism and prejudice, such as greater police enforcement of hate crimes, public messages, and educational programming that promotes tolerance. In reaction to the Coronavirus pandemic wave of bigotry and xenophobia, governments must move fast to develop new action strategies. Since the outbreak began, derogatory media and political statements have been directed at Asians and people of Asian ancestry. Since the attack began, hate speech regarding the Coronavirus pandemic has been spreading quickly on social networking sites. The use of phrases such as “Virus of Wuhan” by US President Trump may have aided the spread of verbal abuse in the US. Despite Trump’s retreat from the use of the phrase and a tweet in reinforcing of Asian-American community in late March, nothing else was required from any specific government action to protect people of the Asian community.
Lunaria, a civil society group, has compiled over 50 claims and media accounts of abuse, verbal harassment, discrimination, and bullying against people of Asian ancestry in Italy since the month of March. Human rights and other groups in France, Australia, and Russia have also documented assaults and harassment of persons of Asian heritage as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. After being accused of spreading the coronavirus, Asians in the United Kingdom have been attacked and insulted. In Africa, especially Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa, discrimination and violence against Asians suspected of having the coronavirus and foreigners, in general, have been documented. According to the media, people of Asian ancestry have been harassed and rejected in Brazil.
In other situations, governments have imposed draconian restrictions on foreign employees indiscriminately, without offering enough healthcare coverage, monetary assistance, or other amenities that so many employees now require to survive. For example, the Malaysian government in early March detained a significant number of migrant and refugees’ workers, claiming without proof that the migrant society and refugees in Rohingya were answerable for the pandemic’s spread. In addition, following a series of Coronavirus pandemic breakouts in tightly packed separated zones for immigrant workers, the bulk of whom are Asian, racist language in public talk against immigrant workers became increasingly common throughout the Middle East.
People of Asian origin have not been immune to discrimination. In Sri Lanka and India, where governments have done nothing to prevent rising discrimination against anti-Muslim discrimination in recent years, several alleged Coronavirus pandemic-related violent incidents and prejudice against Muslims were recorded. Ultra-nationalist officials in Myanmar have used the pandemic to justify risks and verbal abuse aimed towards Muslims. In May 2020, Chinese executives in Guangdong province, which housed the largest African population in China, started a program to test Africans aggressively again for coronavirus and force them to isolation places or stay in licensed hotels. Landowners’ eviction of African residents was evident, forcing them to spend the night on the streets while hotels, shops, and eateries declined to give them service (Kim & Sundstrom, 2014). Other groups of immigrants have not experienced the same amount of prejudice. Any government’s response to the coronavirus must include this component to criticize racism consistently and forcefully. Governments must also boost hate crime police and help populations that were victims of motivated violence and discrimination. Companies like Facebook and Twitter have a duty to safeguard their users against biased and xenophobic information on their platforms. They should devote enough resources to resolving and mitigating the effects.
Conclusion
In conclusion, individual-based discrimination acts and attitudes have continuously surfaced throughout time as a result of racism and xenophobia against ant- Asians. Moreover, organizations and institutional agencies have reinforced these attitudes and heinous beliefs in times of economic crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak or tremendous upheavals. AS a result, ethnicity and racial discrimination have been perpetuated by establishing the “them us vs” mentality that puts Asian Americans at the ground of the social ladder, unjustly and intentional deeming them like people who are who do not deserve similar privileges, honor, and respect as those on the top. Thus, this kind of marginalization has caused American Asians to be more exposed to all forms of racist violence, including hate crimes.
Appendix
In my research I used two book and others were peer reviewed journal article that were very helpful in writing this research paper. In Lee’s book, “America for Americans”, it offered me a broader look at how racial prejudice has affected white American society from its colonial roots. She recounts the history of xenophobic dread among Asian Americans, as well as many demonstrates how basic racial anxiety has always been a part of American identity.
The other book is by Shah who demonstrates how Asian immigration in the nineteenth century were considered as unclean and perhaps unhealthy, resulting in long-standing anti-AAPI biases — and driving generations of Asian Americans to struggle for their right to be treated equally. She points out that the COVID-19 outbreak isn’t the first time a disease has been racially blamed on the Asian population in the United States. The two books were much informative in conducting my research.
References
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