On March 10, 2022 I was sitting in the lecture hall for my political science class at UCLA and coughed. This single cough was immediately followed by several students whipping around to give me looks of horror and disgust and some even to move further away from where I was sitting. Why did this experience stick with me? This happened a few days before my campus closed for the rest of the academic year because the COVID-19 virus had begun to spread rapidly in Los Angeles.
With regards to this experience I was lucky. I wasn’t spit on or yelled at to go back to my country or physically assaulted but many other members of the AAPI community were. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a rise in instances of hate towards the AAPI community. These instances ranged from relatively minor frustrations like a dirty look directed at an AAPI person to the monumentalized events like the former president of the United States on national television calling the virus the “Chinese virus” at a news briefing at the White House.
This treatment of the AAPI community as outcasts and separated from the average American isn’t a new concept. As far back as in the late 1700s Asian Americans have been deemed, along with other POC communities, as responsible for the failure and insufficiency of American companies and labor and have been treated cruelly because of this. From the Rock Springs Massacre in 1885 Wyoming, where over 40 Chinese miners were killed or injured by white miners who thought the Chinese immigrants were stealing jobs that were rightfully theirs, to the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982 by two white men who blamed Chin, a Chinese American, for the failure of the American automotive industry and rise of the Japanese automotive industry, white Americans have continuously treated Asian Americans as scapegoats for their anger at white Americans’ failure.
Members of the AAPI community experiencing hate with the onset of the pandemic is no different than these situations. However, there is little to no data on current-day maltreatment of members of the community. Why’s this? According to Kiran Bhalla, the project director of AAPI Equity Alliance, many of the incidents reported by members of the community of instances of hate they’ve been experienced do not qualify under the California Attorney General’s definition of a “hate crime” and thus are not included in their annual publication of Hate Crime in the California Report. Kiran telling our cohort this enraged me because this exclusion of hate incidents experienced by the AAPI community is consistent with the exclusion and separation of members of the community from white Americans. The Attorney General’s refusal to include these instances in the report not only belittles the malice experienced by these people but also makes the message to members of the community loud and clear: you don’t fit in in this country and you will never be treated as such.
With 10,905 hate incidents reported by AAPI persons from March 2020 to December 2021, according to a report made in December 2021 by AAPI Equity Alliance, that do not qualify as “hate crimes” under the California Attorney General’s definition, we need to work on broadening the definition, not only as what constitutes as a hate crime, but what constitutes an American and thus entitling such a person to respect and inclusion. By promoting the works of organizations like AAPI Equity Alliance that strengthen the voices of AAPI people and give them a platform to say how they’ve been mistreated simply due to them being a member of the AAPI community, without being cast off or neglected, we can start to broaden this definition. Kiran’s presentation filled me with hope that, despite the constant mistreatment of AAPIs today and in the past, the hate against AAPIs is beginning to get noticed. meaning that one day members of the community won’t have to simply accept that they’ll be spat on or assaulted, whether physically or verbally, or given a dirty look like I received in that political science class, because they’re Asian and viewed as responsible for the faults of America, and we can start to work towards building an America inclusive and welcoming to all.