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A new survey released on Wednesday shows a staggering 49% of Asian Americans were victims of a hate act in the U.S. last year, much of it happening under the radar amid a drop in national scrutiny and lack of reporting to law enforcement.
A wave of high-profile hate crimes at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic drew national ire over anti-Asian attacks. But the new survey, shared exclusively with USA TODAY on Wednesday, shows that the Asian American community faces pervasive levels of hate under the radar, from parking lots and public transit to workplaces and colleges.
The report by Stop AAPI Hate and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago — which will be released Wednesday afternoon at a news briefing in Washington D.C. with members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus — surveyed 1,005 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander adults across the nation. The report found that nearly half of respondents faced discrimination in 2023, but they also fought against it at unprecedented levels.
U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, told USA TODAY the report helps fill a data “vacuum” and will inform lawmakers and the public on trends of anti-Asian racism in the future. She noted a spike in hate incidents against Asians when COVID-19 first spread and said former President Donald Trump “put a target on our backs” through inflammatory rhetoric.
But even after the wave of early pandemic-era attacks subsided, Chu said the community is facing alarming levels of discrimination.
“Since then, the crimes and hate incidents have not been as visible, but they’re still there,” Chu explained. “They are still happening, and that’s why it is important for Stop AAPI Hate to put this report out.”
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‘Didn’t begin or end with COVID’
Stephanie Chan, director of data and research at Stop AAPI Hate, told USA TODAY that rhetoric around COVID-19 spotlighted a history of racism against the Asian community. She said there has been a shift in the rhetoric that is fueling anti-Asian hate, from pandemic-related accusations to more general xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“Things did not begin or end with COVID, and we just need to address the real systemic causes of anti-Asian and anti-Pacific Islander racism in the U.S.,” Chan said.
The survey also showed that racism is a top issue for the Asian American community, with 85% saying they are concerned about the U.S. racial climate.
Stop AAPI Hate co-founder Manjusha Kulkarni noted that the forms of anti-Asian racism may be shifting from individual assaults on people in the early years of the pandemic to a rise in institutional discrimination. The new survey found that 51% of victims experienced hate in a business, work, housing, healthcare, educational, or government setting.
“Hate is a bigger problem than just simply hate crimes,” Kulkarni said.
Just this month, the House passed a bill aimed at reviving the “China Initiative,” a Trump-era surveillance program to prosecute perceived Chinese spies. The Justice Department axed it in 2022, saying it fostered anti-Asian bias and discouraged U.S. efforts to attract top scientists for critical research across business and academia.
Chu said the bill, which she referred to as the “new McCarthyism,” had cost Chinese American scholars their jobs over baseless claims that they were spies for China.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law last year barring anyone associated with the Chinese government, political parties, business organizations, and people “domiciled” in China who are not U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents from buying property in Florida. The U.S. Department of Justice said in court filings last summer that the law violates the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The ban remains active.
But assaults on individuals in the Asian American community are still prevalent, with 26% of respondents reporting physical attacks. This month, an Indiana woman pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime after she repeatedly stabbed a Chinese American teen on a city bus while yelling slurs last year.
Stop AAPI Hate also highlighted a rise in hate against South Asians since the war in Gaza began. In October, prosecutors said an argument over a minor fender bender spiraled into an ugly hate crime when a driver in Queens, New York, called a Sikh Indian man “turban man” and pummeled him in the head, causing a fatal fall.
‘We are not taking this sitting down’
The new survey aims to paint a fuller picture of racism against Asians and Pacific Islanders. The survey, for example, asked respondents about criminal acts such as physical assault, property damage, and violent verbal threats. But it also looked at non-criminal attacks such as racial slurs that can be protected under free speech and institutional discrimination.
Stop AAPI Hate began in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic amid a wave of high-profile hate incidents. Three organizations — Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University, and AAPI Equity Alliance — launched the coalition as a hate incident reporting center for Asian Americans. It received reports of 735 anti-Asian/Pacific Islander hate acts in 2023, but the new study said that number is just the “tip of the iceberg.”
The report indicates many of the hate incidents are never formally documented. Nearly half of respondents said they didn’t tell anyone about the incident, and even less — 16% — reported it to law enforcement.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders may not report to authorities due to a lack of trust in law enforcement response, lack of information, or fear of retaliation, the report said. Chan also noted that some community members face a language barrier in communicating with police.
The FBI released its 2023 crime report this week, which showed a small increase in overall hate crimes over the previous year. The data is compiled from cases reported to law enforcement agencies across the U.S. Some of the discrimination captured in Stop AAPI Hate’s survey, such as non-violent verbal assaults or being denied service at a business, may not be illegal and are less likely to be captured in law enforcement data.
Stop AAPI Hate plans to conduct the survey every year, to get a holistic picture of discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Chan said she was also seeing an unprecedented wave of action to combat hate, with nearly 3 in 4 Asian Americans participating in acts to resist racism such as educating others, attending protests, engaging with lawmakers, or donating to racial justice organizations.
“It is encouraging that we are not taking this sitting down, that AAPI communities are really taking action at levels that we haven’t really witnessed before,” Chan concluded.