Call It By Name: Anti-Asian Hate in America
Schools and teachers have a responsibility to address Asian American hate and shape our nation's racial narratives.
Author: Paul Dang
Schools and teachers have a responsibility to address Asian American hate and shape our nation's racial narratives.
Author: Paul Dang
While the world was reeling from a pandemic, a second outbreak was spreading.
After a video of an assault of an elderly Asian man went viral, news outlets began reporting more and more violence targeting Asian Americans. More data emerged from police departments showing that anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 150% in 2020, despite general hate crimes decreasing by 7% overall. (1) A national report conducted by Stop AAPI (Asian American-Pacific Islander) Hate documented nearly 4,000 anti-Asian hate incidents in the U.S. in less than one calendar year. (2)
Then, a mass shooting in Georgia put an unthinkable crest on this rising wave of hate. The alleged gunman drove to two cities, targeted three Asians businesses and killed eight people. By this time, news of anti-Asian assaults, harassment, vandalism and other crimes were developing on mainstream media alongside trending hashtags like #StopAsianHate.
Image source: Reuters
For Asian Americans these headlines are not new, but another page in an unread chapter of American history.
The age of hashtag activism and fast-news cycles have shown us American tragedies come and go in our collective thoughts. What we need instead is transformed education. In schools, we can create lasting change in how we perceive, hear and talk about Asian American issues.
When looking at public school curriculum, the struggles and contributions of Asian Americans are still unexplored and missing from our history classes. Ask yourself, do you know about the "coolie trade" of the 1800s? Did you learn about The Chinese Exclusion Act or the Alien Land Laws in school? Did you read about Asian American contribution to the Transcontinental Railroad or how they fought in the American Civil War?
When tracking racial demographic metrics, including hate crimes against minorities, Asian Americans are often missing entirely from the dataset. When data is missing from the tables, this makes raising issues at the other proverbial table difficult when there is no seat to begin with.
Contrary to the model minority myth, which was constructed to drive a wedge between minorities, former President Barack Obama’s administration recognized critical issues that Asian Americans face. Here are some statistics pulled verbatim from the White House report:
Asian Americans are also the least likely to be promoted to management positions, missing in political office in both parties and make up only 1.4% of lead characters in films.
Public education mirrors these statistics of underrepresentation. Demographics of teachers don’t match that of their students in the U.S. for all minorities. Asians make up 6% of the U.S. population, and are projected to reach 10% in the coming decades as the fastest growing demographic. However, only 2% of all teachers are Asian American. (3)
There have been plenty of studies showing how students of color perform better academically when they have a teacher who looks like them. (4) Additionally, there is an unquantifiable benefit of having more teachers of color because of how it humanizes people of all backgrounds for children at the earliest stages of their learning.
With Asian Americans issues being virtually invisible, though, this contributes to the false narrative that Asian Americans don’t face systemic racism to the level of other minority groups. It also means the larger history and context is missing, stereotypes go unchecked and historical narratives go unchallenged.
“Think I'm dealing with racism worse cause of the outbreak? No, we've been dealing with racism since birth without breaks.”
In their single, Viral, the New York-based, Korean American rap duo, Year of the Ox, detail how systemic racism against Asians is not a new phenomenon, but instead the current trend of people paying attention is. While national coverage of hate crimes has reached a new level of viral coverage, anti-Asian sentiments are deep-rooted in American history.
In the 1800s, Asian laborers were shipped to the U.S. as a source of cheap labor. Referred to as “coolies,” The New York Times reported in 1860, many were actually kidnapped from China as slaves, forced to work against their will and bought and sold like livestock in what was known as the “pig trade.”
“The traditional horrors of the African middle-passage have been reenacted, are indeed continually reenacting, under the American flag in the Chinese ports.” (5)
A lesser known fact of American history is how President Abraham Lincoln passed An Act to prohibit the ”Coolie Trade” months before his Emancipation Proclamation, which officially freed Black slaves in 1862. California’s current state constitution explicitly reads: Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labor shall be void.
The Chinese Question (1871), a political cartoon by Thomas Nast.
This ban on Asian slave labor would transition to a long period of anti-Asian sentiments, epitomized by The Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese immigration to the U.S.
Alien Land Laws would further prevent Asians from legally owning land until 1952, when lawyer and civil activist Sei Fujii fought to overturn this systemically racist law in the case of Fujii v. California. (6) Prior to that legal battle, Fujii was denied a license to practice law because he was a member of the “Mongolian race.” The Los Angeles Times reported that Fujii, at age 73, passed away 51 days after winning that monumental case.
Fast forward to 1982, when two Michigan auto workers at the local Chrysler plant—one of whom had just been laid off—beat Vincent Chin to death with a baseball bat. They blamed the Japanese for the decline of the American auto industry. Chin was Chinese American. (7)
Not only have Asians been perceived as a monolithic racial group rather than people from a culturally and ethnically diverse continent, there is also the idea of Asian Americans being “perpetual foreigners,” despite a history that goes back to nearly the founding of the U.S.
“Asians were part of the United States even well before many white European immigrants came through Ellis Island,” Sohyun An, Kennesaw State University professor, said.
“Kids grow up in Georgia and think Asians are all foreigners, and when they become ‘the enemy’ to the national crisis like COVID-19, ‘the military enemy’ and ‘economic competitor like China or Japan,’ it’s all coming from a missed opportunity in school [to teach] that Asians are a part of America…Curriculum is not a matter of academic debate. The danger is real.”
What’s been a glimmer of hope during these events is seeing the issue discussed on the main stage. Asian American media personalities like Daniel Dae Kim, and representatives like elected Republican official, Lee Wong, are speaking out.
“For too long, I’ve put up with a lot of shit in silence.”
Wong, a 69-year-old veteran, delivered a painfully candid testimony in which he stood up in a town hall meeting, and took his shirt off to reveal battle scars sustained during his service.
Wong’s experiences are not singular. Generations of Asian Americans like him have spent many years, if not lifetimes, in silence for fear of social backlash for speaking out.
“Asian Americans have experienced hate incidents at a significantly higher percentage than the general population, but are also among the least likely to say they are “very comfortable” reporting hate crimes to authorities.” (8)
This hesitance to report hate crimes, as well as a potential language barrier, emboldens criminals to target Asian Americans. The result is a vicious cycle in which systemic barriers lead to underrepresentation which leads to discrimination that causes more systemic barriers.
“I feel like so many Asian elders have been targeted because of this stereotype that Asians are meek and quiet and don’t speak up and don’t say anything, and therefore that makes our elderly easy targets,” Liz Kleinrock, teacher, said.
“It’s so important to be loud and to bring attention to this. Education is so important. If we don’t know our history, then we’re doomed to repeat the same thing over and over again.”
This is the point in time when Asian Americans need to take another step to further shape the future—with more representation, more history and more voice. Reassessing the way Asian American history is taught, and seeing more Asian American educators is a start to repairing the damage.
The Japanese depiction of the “three wise monkeys’ depicts three apes—one covering its eyes, one covering its ears and one covering its mouth. This Pan-Asian parable—that is it exists in some form in numerous Asian countries—is commonly understood to encourage good action.
However, another interpretation of this symbolism exists where the proverb and image are “often used to refer to a lack of moral responsibility on the part of people who refuse to acknowledge impropriety, looking the other way or feigning ignorance.” (9)
There is a lesser known fourth monkey, Shizaru, who is shown crossing his arms to symbolize the tenet, “Do no evil.” But what if doing no evil is not enough? Perhaps a modern interpretation is in order.
Angela Davis famously said, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.” We also need to be honest in our understanding of history. This is a responsibility teachers and schools must uphold.
Any lasting change begins with educating future generations, and by having more Asian Americans teaching a fuller Asian American history to our country. When minority groups push for more representation in schools, in history books, in Congress and media and everywhere else, it’s for moments like now.
We have a powerful opportunity within the educational system to address this issue at the deepest level: through teaching our future generations. Asian American history is American history, and by excluding the struggles and contributions made by Asian Americans in the development of our country, not only do we lose an opportunity to understand a rich and vibrant culture alive within America, we continue to silence millions of Asian Americans who are integral to both our past and future as a nation.
Original artwork by Archie Geotina.