Poll: Asian Americans fearful of violence
California Community Poll also shows shift in attitude statewide toward anti-Asian racism
In the wake of a rash of alarming hate crimes nationwide, more Californians are acknowledging that Asian Americans experience discrimination, and an overwhelming majority of Asian Americans report that they fear becoming victims of hate-based violence, a new survey says.
The California Community Poll, which surveys Californians about politics, race and current events in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times, found that 70% of Californians agree that Asians are “frequently or sometimes” discriminated against.
That marks a “substantial shift” in perceptions and experiences of discrimination among the group, up from 55% last year, the poll’s sponsors said Friday. There has also been a dramatic shift among Asian American respondents, with about 79% saying their community experiences discrimination, as compared to just 63% last year.
“This increase in awareness — as horrible as the reason for the awareness is — it gives us the chance to talk about what solutions to this could be,” said Nancy Yap, executive director of the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, one of the poll’s sponsoring organizations. “We’re all afraid of this, we’re all in this together, so how do we start to change what race relations look like in California?”
The poll’s results arrive during a renewed surge of anti-Asian American hate incidents that activists date back to last March, when then-President Donald Trump began using racist rhetoric to describe the coronavirus.
The organization Stop AAPI Hate has received 6,603 reports of anti-Asian incidents across the U.S. since then, more than 2,000 of which took place so far in 2021, according to a new report released Thursday. About 65% of the incidents involve verbal harassment, and 13% involve physi
cal assault. Forty percent of the incidents were reported in California.
Violence in the Bay Area, particularly against elders, has rocked local Asian American communities this winter and spring. Earlier this week, two Asian woman — one of whom is 85 years old — were stabbed while they stood at a San Francisco bus stop; prosecutors are reportedly considering hate crime charges for the suspect.
Other high-profile incidents include the death of an 84-year-old San Francisco
man after a young man slammed him into a driveway and a 91-year-old shoved to the ground in Oakland’s Chinatown.
In San Jose and Oakland, civic leaders have formed community patrols to protect Asian American residents. Protests drawing thousands have likewise called for increased awareness of the history of California’s racist policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“The more we draw attention to anti-Asian hate, the more Asian Americans know they have a place to report what they’re experiencing, and the more we can demonstrate the extent of the problem and advocate for meaningful solutions,” said Russell Jeung, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University.
The California Community Poll shows that the vast majority of Asian American residents live in fear of such attacks. About 73% of Asian Americans said they were worried about being the victim of physical violence or a hate crime due to their race, as compared with 61% of Black residents and 58% of Latino residents.
Despite California’s wideranging diversity among Asian American communities, “externally, we’re often mistaken for each other, and the hate crimes are showing that,” Yap said.
“This is about foreignness, not belonging, being vulnerable,” she added.
A higher number of Asian Americans than other groups likewise said they are afraid of being verbally abused, mocked or harassed in public, with 68% saying they were “somewhat” or “very worried” about it as compared with 57% of Black residents and 54% of Latino residents.
The vast majority of respondents of color said they worried about children or their own race or ethnicity would be bullied at school, with Asian Americans leading slightly at 72%, compared with 70% of Black residents and 66% of Latino residents.
Yet when it comes to fear of law enforcement, the poll found that the trends were reversed. About 77% of Black Californians reported being worried about facing unfair treatment from law enforcement based on race, compared with about 64% of Latinos and 54% of Asian Americans. A larger number of Asian American residents than Black or Latino residents also said they are hopeful that their communities will be accepted in the future.
“With all this that we’re talking about, we continue to be very hopeful,” Yap said.
Still, about one-third of
Black and Asian American respondents said that their mental health was suffering because of how people view their race or ethnicity.
The poll has been conducted four times over the past year. It concentrates its efforts in communities of color in order to produce statistically significant results for the state’s Latino, African American and Asian American residents. Aside from the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, its sponsors are Hispanas Organized for Political Equality and The Los Angeles Urban League.
The latest iteration interviewed 1,294 California adults online between April 16 and 29.