Report: Hate incidents targeting AAPI exceed 10,000 in under 2 years

A recent survey report from civic rights group Stop AAPI Hate found that hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. have exceeded the 10,000-mark in just under two years.

Composed of AAPI Equality Alliance, Chinese for Affirmative Action and San Francisco State University, the coalition has been actively keeping tabs on hate incidents against members of the AAPI community since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, the group released its latest report, revealing that AAPI individuals in the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico reported 10,905 hate incidents in the period between March 19, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2021.

Individuals responding to the group’s national survey reported incidents ranging from denial of service and avoidance to physical assault and harassment. About 92% of the 10,905 reports cited “race” as the most common reason for the discriminatory incident experienced. The second most cited reason was “ethnicity,” which was mentioned in 52.6% of reports. The data overlap is a result of respondents being allowed to cite more than one reason per report.

The top five states with the most reported hate incidents against the AAPI are California, New York, Washington, Texas and Illinois. Meanwhile, “the top sites” where anti-AAPI hate incidents reportedly occurred were in public streets (31.2% of all reported incidents) and in businesses (26.9%).

About 67% of respondents indicated that incidents they reported also included a form of harassment, which the report broke down into “Verbal hate speech and/or harassment,” “Behavioral” harassment (stalking or bullying), “Gesture” harassment (middle finger or slanted eye gesture), “Written” harassment (propaganda signs), and “Sexual” harassment.” The most commonly mentioned was verbal hate speech.

Physical assault and being avoided or shunned both came in as the second most common types of discrimination, accounting for a little over 16% each.

AAPI women were the most likely gender group to report harassment, with 69.8% of women reporting these incidents compared to 63.0% of AAPI men and 56.3% of gender non-binary people.

Featured Image via Jason Leung

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