1 in 2 Indians faced bias in Trump’s final year

THE SURVEY SHOWED THE DISCRIMINATION WAS MOSTLY OVER THE COLOUR OF THEIR SKIN

WASHINGTON: One in two Indian Americans experienced some form of discrimination in the US over the course of a 12-month period, says a new survey-based study. And it’s mostly over the colour of their skin, followed by gender, religion, country of origin and caste, in that order.

The Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), done jointly by Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie, with polling group Youand

Gov, also found that Us-born Indian Americans are more likely to complain of discrimination than those born outside, mostly in India.

The study is based on a poll of 1,200 Indian Americans — including citizens, Green Card holders

Non-resident Indians — in September of 2020, in the run up to the November election. Respondents were asked, among a wide range of questions, if they had felt discriminated against in the past 12 months, roughly the last year of President Donald Trump’s term.

Trump’s four years were marked by a significant spike in hate crimes and discriminatory behaviour, including the mainstreaming of white supremacists. A big part of it was against Asian Americans, over the Covid-19 outbreak, which Trump and his supporters had taken to calling the “China Virus”, “Wuhan Virus” or “Kung Flu”.

But there is no data to show if Indian American felt the same level of discrimination or less pre-trump. The report said, according to their data, “one in two Indian Americans reports being subject to some form of discrimination in the past year”.

The data suggested that “discrimination based on skin colour is the most common form of bias: 30% of respondents report feeling discriminated against due to the colour of their skin”.