Anti-Asian American discrimination soars during coronavirus pandemic, group says

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, there has been an increase in reports of anti-Asian discrimination and hate.

Elizer StaJuana, 19, told CBS San Francisco he was assaulted when he was waiting for public transportation in Melbourne, Australia.

“Out of nowhere he started punching my face,” he told the outlet.

“I just keep hearing things like, ‘I don’t like this guy, because he’s making my coffee, cause he’s Asian, cause due to coronavirus, I might get coronavirus,’” he said about customers at McDonald’s, his workplace, according to CBS San Francisco.

Stop AAPI Hate was established in mid-March with SF State and Chinese for Affirmative Action to track cases of discrimination, according to CBS San Francisco.

Since Stop AAPI Hate’s creation, there have been 1,983 reports of anti-Asian bias, the group told McClatchy News. Around 40% of those cases are from California.

Trump has blamed China for the pandemic, saying the country should have been more transparent about the outbreak and contained it early on after it originated in Wuhan, China, The Hill reported.

“I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn’t want to admit it. We wanted to go in. They didn’t want us there,” Trump said during a Fox News virtual town hall, according to The Hill. “This virus should not have spread all over the world. They should have put it out.”

Trump has also referred to COVID-19 as “the plague from China” and the “Chinese virus.”

“As I have said for a long time, dealing with China is a very expensive thing to do,” Trump tweeted on May 13. “We just made a great Trade Deal, the ink was barely dry, and the World was hit by the Plague from China. 100 Trade Deals wouldn’t make up the difference — and all those innocent lives lost!”

Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said that there is evidence that the virus came from a Wuhan lab but haven’t specified what the evidence was or provided any proof, according to The Hill.

As the coronavirus continues to spread, instances of anti-Asian hate continue to pop up across the U.S. A 52-year-old woman in California was accused of posting fliers telling Asians to “go back to your country,” according to police. The notes were posted in front of at least five homes, McClatchy News reported.

“You have until the day May/23/2020 Saturday 10:30 am to leave this country,” one flier read. “In this place, no Asian allowed. My Country USA.”

A Seattle man allegedly harassed and threatened Asian residents and spat on one man, accusing them of bringing the pandemic to the country, McClatchy News reported.

“The suspect spit into the male victim’s face, striking his cheek,” Seattle police said. “The suspect continued to yell at the victim, ‘Where are you from?’”

Stop AAPI Hate began recording discrimination incidents since March 19 and tracks by type of bias, including verbal harassment, shunning, physical assault, workplace discrimination, and being coughed or spat on. These incidents were reported across 45 states and Washington D.C.

Reports can be submitted online.

A previous monthly report from March 19 to April 15 found Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women were harassed more than men.

“We continue to be alarmed by the steady rise in the number of hate incidents, despite shelter-in-place in many parts of the country,” Manjusha Kulkarni, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, told McClatchy News. “As our economies begin to open up, we hope that the country will not see a spike in anti-AAPI hate incidents though polls from IPSOS (finding that 30% of all Americans witnessed someone blaming Asian Americans for COVID-19 and 60% of Asian Americans experienced the same) and Harris (finding that 75% of Asian Americans worry that they may become targets of hate and discrimination as a result of the spread of COVID-19) give us significant pause.”

An Ipsos survey for the Center of Public Integrity found more than 30% of Americans have seen someone blaming Asians for the pandemic. Of the Asian Americans surveyed, — makinge up 6% of the respondents — 60% said they had witnessed the same behavior.

The survey was conducted with a sample of 1,001 adults randomly selected through Ipsos’ online panel and interviewed online. The survey has an adjusted confidence interval of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Anti-Asian American discrimination soars during coronavirus pandemic, group says."