REPORT SAYS ONE IN TWO INDIAN AMERICANS HAS EXPERIENCED DISCRIMINATION

One in two Indian-Americans has reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the US over the course of a 12-month period, says a study released on Wednesday.

The Indian-American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), done jointly by Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie with polling group YouGov, 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 and non-resident Indians - in September 2020, in the run up to the November election.

Respondents were asked, among a wide range of questions, if they had felt discrimination against in the past 12 months, roughly the last year of president Donald Trump’s term.

Trump’s four years in the White House were marked by a spike in hate crimes and discriminatory behaviour in the US, including the mainstreaming of white supremacists.

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

It added that “the data suggest that discrimination based on skin colour is the most common form of bias: 30% of respondents reported feeling discriminated against due to the colour of their skin”; 18% each for those discriminated against due to their gender or religion, and 16% for their country of origin.