What’s Happening to the So-called ‘Model Minority’ during the Dual Pandemic?
Asian Americans -- from South, Southeast and East Asia -- and Pacific Islanders make up the fastest growing minority in the U.S. That means that as voters, they could make critical differences in swing states on Election Day.
There has been some attention paid to “disparity communities” affected by COVID-19, usually meaning Black and Latinx people. We’ve heard less about the coronavirus’ effect on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, many of whom have lost family, friends and small businesses.
Recently, the U.S. set a record when the Centers for Disease and Prevention announced 83,000 new cases of COVID-19 and a total of 224,000 deaths. But we haven’t heard an enormous amount about Pacific Islanders, who have the third highest rate of deaths, after American Indians and Blacks, or about the South Asian 14-year old girl in Texas who may have found a possible route to a cure for coronavirus.
Then there’s the pandemic-within-the-pandemic, meaning domestic violence among Asian American and Pacific Island communities. Lawyer Grace Huang says there have been more assaults on women in these communities, and the harm of domestic violence has been compounded by public attacks, thanks to the rise in public xenophobia and anti-Asian bigotry fueled by the false belief that the coronavirus arrived in the U.S. from China. President Trump has talked about “the China virus” and “kung flu,” while California Gov. Gavin Newsom made the erroneous claim that COVID-19 emerged in a nail parlor. Almost all California nail parlors are run by Vietnamese Americans.
Verbal abuse and violence against Asian American and Pacific Islanders stemming from rhetoric calling COVID-19 the “China flu” have occurred in California and New York, where Chinatown pictured above is located, but at least one reported incident happened in Mississippi. Wikipedia
At San Francisco State University, the Asian-American Studies department worked with two community partners to launch the Stop AAPI Hate project. The project’s Web site encourages community members across the U.S. to report attacks in their own languages. Such attacks may include “hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying.” From mid-March to mid-July 2020, the project counted 341 incidents of verbal abuse of youth under age 20, mostly girls, who also were more likely to be spat or coughed on and blamed for COVID-19. In almost half of these incidents, adults were present. But an adult intervened only 10 percent of the time.
Most of these incidents took place in California and New York, but one happened in Mississippi.
In a follow-up survey of Asian American and Pacific Island communities among young people, some said they were afraid to have their grandparents leave home, for fear that they would be harassed. In New York, a young pianist moved from Tokyo to Harlem because it is the heartland of jazz. Muggers, one of whom called him “Chinese,” beat him on the street to the point where he cannot play or hold his baby son.
Grace Huang is the director of policy at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, a national organization based in Oakland, California, that trains advocates and works on issues facing victims of gender‐based violence in Asian and Pacific Islander communities, where many members are new immigrants. Beginning in 2000, she has worked on sections of the federal Violence Against Women Act, including those that deal with immigrant victims. She says that many domestic abusers of Asian American and Pacific Island communities threaten to report their victims to immigration authorities and have them deported, if they do not submit. Huang recalls that since 9/11, there have been similar incidents in Muslim communities, where abusers threaten that they were going to call Homeland Security and claim their victims are domestic terrorists.
In Asian American and Pacific Island communities, members come from many different countries and speak as many languages. For example, with large Asian populations, the New York City borough of Queens is thought to be the most diverse place on earth, with at least 138 different languages spoken.
This linguistic diversity is a particular difficulty for victims seeking help, and for advocates working with them. An advocate who speaks, say, Cambodian, may find herself having to familiarize herself with legal, housing and employment resources for a Cambodian-speaking client, because there is no interpreter or translated information available at agencies that could help.
Grace Huang feels hopeful that as more awareness is raised, there will be increased efforts to support victims. Huang points to the COVID recovery bills pending in Congress, with increased resources for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, including increased resources for victim services programs in culturally specific communities.
Ann Marie Cunningham is a Columbia University Lipman Fellow for 2020 who will be working with the Mississippi Center for investigative Reporting. She is a veteran journalist/producer and author of a best-seller. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Technology Review, The Nation and The New Republic. Contact her at amclissf@gmail.com.