The hate Asian Americans face

A91-year-old man shoved to the ground in Oakland’s Chinatown. A dead cat left at a family-run butcher shop in Sacramento. A fire and vandalism at a Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo. The harassment of an immigrant family in Ladera Ranch. A Sacramento high-school teacher making disparaging slant-eyed gestures during a Zoom call. These horrific incidents all occurred within the last month. And the trend isn’t limited to California. Voice of America has documented similar surges in other cities.

Today, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing minority group in America, and they have become pivotal voters in some elections. That’s one reason Donald Trump’s tough-on-china rhetoric was so harmful. As China continues to grow in wealth and influence, so too doesmistrust in theus – some of it justified – about the Chinese regime’s intentions. But as the persecution of German Americans in World War I and Japanese Americans in World War II shows, rivalry with a foreign power can easily spill over into terrible abuses at home.

There is some good news. The recently enacted California pandemic aid bill includes $1.4m to support research by the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA and data reporting by Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of advocacy groups established to collect information on racially motivated violence and harassment.

But more leadership will be needed to prevent this latest trend from getting worse – or turning deadly.