Presented by Intel
With help from Maya King, Gavin Bade, Catherine Kim and Teresa Wiltz.
Two trends co-exist: The rise in Asian American and Pacific Islander political success — and the rise in violence against the community.
The first trend was inevitable. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing racial demographic, with nearly 50 different nationalities and ethnicities lumped under the “AAPI” umbrella. Those growing numbers mean growing media and political attention — and sometimes growing resentment from the majority.
Last year, against the backdrop of a heated national election, a global pandemic and the former president using xenophobic nicknames for a deadly virus, AAPI voters got busy.
They became a key voting bloc in Georgia. In the 13 battleground states, AAPI early and absentee voting rose nearly 300 percent from 2016, according to the progressive data firm Catalist. We got our first South Asian vice president. And it’s not all Democratic gains: Korean American Republican Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel rose to victory in California.
The second trend was also inevitable. Advocacy organization Stop AAPI Hate received 3,795 self-reported cases of hate incidents since the pandemic began, from racial slurs and intimidation to physical attacks. Asian American women were more than twice as likely to report hate incidents as men. AAPI advocates began ringing the alarm — loudly — to little avail.
This dynamic exploded last week in Atlanta, when a 21-year-old white man allegedly picked up a gun and killed Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Yong Ae Yue, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Delaina Yaun and Paul Andre Michels. Eight people. Six of them Asian women.
Tuesday’s horror and the gut-wrenching reactions from Asian Americans came as a “surprise” to so many people (despite countless warnings) and finally got the nation to pay attention.
But not everyone can reconcile these two dueling trends of AAPI gains and tragedy. At a hearing on pandemic-related hate crimes last week, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) asked, “If America was such [a] hate filled, discriminatory, racist society filled with animus against Asian Americans, how do you explain the remarkable success of Asian Americans in our country?”
Here’s an answer: Don’t flatten the diversity of the diaspora into the stories of high earning STEM CEOs, politicians and Hollywood types. Yes, Kamala Harris is now the vice president. Yes, “Minari” has six Oscar nominations. That doesn’t override the hate crimes.
The “model minority” myth erases the day-to-day struggles of AAPIs who don’t fit the mold — and contributes to the dominant narrative that AAPI life is racism-free. It’s used to further marginalize other racial groups. And it conveniently ignores the trauma inflicted by the U.S. government.
Still, in this new wave of national awareness, scholars and activists say there are several signs that give them hope:
- The AAPI community is uniting in a way reminiscent of post-9/11 organizing, when people were attacking anyone who looked “brown.”
- There’s a newfound focus on low-income Asian women and service workers, who often bear the brunt of the rising hate.
- There’s an important, growing conversation about solidarity with other movements — like Black Lives Matter — and skepticism that “more policing” is the right answer.
Time will tell. As always, we’ll be watching.
All the best,
The Recast Team
Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you'll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Stay tuned for fresh analysis, scoops and new voices.
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THE BIG STORY
POLITICO’S Maya King is in Atlanta, reporting on the aftermath of the fatal shootings. Here’s what she found:
Asian Americans in Georgia turned out in historic numbers to elect Joe Biden and send two Democrats to the Senate. Over the past four years, they’ve more than quadrupled their representation in the statehouse. Now, in the wake of last weeks’ deadly shootings here, fear and anger are driving a new push for political change.
AAPI leaders there want to change the way hate crimes are tracked. But they’re also aiming to boost their representation in state and national offices. Their success — or failure — could have lasting implications.
So they’re calling on their own to get involved. Asian Americans, political leaders say, once largely sat at the fringes of U.S. politics. Their headfirst dive into organizing is netting them significant political capital — and keeping Georgia at the center of the political universe.
Read more from Maya here. And hear Maya and Catherine Kim talk about their weekend reporting in Atlanta on POLITICO Dispatch.
THE ROUNDTABLE
Atlanta showed America how AAPI women are particularly vulnerable to misogyny, fetishization, racism and xenophobia.
We wanted to dig a little deeper into this, so we tapped Cathy Ceniza Choy, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley; Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood, executive director of the Asian American Advocacy Fund in Georgia; and Ellen Wu, author of "The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority.” Here’s what they had to say:
What’s standing out to you about media coverage and conversations about Atlanta?
ELLEN WU: What is so frustrating is the attention is so much on the perpetrator. What I’m appreciating is definitely hearing from feminists, scholars, and activists and organizers, Asian women in particular, who are really making it clear that this is a hate crime in terms of racism and misogyny. And being clear that these women faced a particular kind of susceptibility or vulnerability to violence.
How deep does this go? What created the foundation for this moment of Asian women being targeted from all sides at once?
ELLEN WU: I feel like it’s spectacularly predictable. To many Americans, if they pay attention to Asian women, it’s like a very limited set of images or perhaps interactions. It might just be like a nail salon worker, a nurse, but also, people think of sex workers. And that is because in large part, that history of war and military engagement in Asia. One consequence of U.S. troops being in places like Korea or Vietnam has been women in those areas turning to service work to cater to the U.S. military personnel who are in their home country.
CATHY CENIZA CHOY: Asian American women have been stereotyped and associated with prostitution, they have been objectified as objects of sexual desire. We’ve seen this on a very mass popular scale through Hollywood films throughout the 20th century. This popularity of Asian American women stereotyped as being a “dragon lady,” a “lotus blossom” or “Suzie Wong.”
Have you seen a difference in how AAPIs are organizing and finding solidarity across movements?
AISHA YAQOOB MAHMOOD: I definitely think that 2020 was the first opportunity for our community to really be recognized in this larger political arena, as a force to be reckoned with. Do I think that the events of last week will help mobilize support for our communities? I hope so.
THE NUMBERS GAME
Readers, we asked what you think led to the rise in hate crimes and what we’re missing from our coverage. Many of you wanted to know how class, citizenship status and access to opportunity vary by ethnic group.
We got you. Overall, AAPIs are the most educated and highest-earning racial group in the U.S. More than 70 percent of Asian Americans are foreign born. But when and how and from where you immigrated all determine life in America. Here are some data points showing just how broad the AAPI experience is.
On immigration:
On income disparities:
On higher education attainment:
On unemployment during the pandemic:
For more detailed breakdowns, check out AAPI Data and the Pew Research Center's hub on Asian Americans.
POLICY ABROAD FUELS HATE AT HOME
AAPI leaders worry escalating trade and foreign policy tensions with China will continue fueling xenophobia against Asian American populations stateside, reports POLITICO’s Gavin Bade.
AAPI leaders say the Biden administration’s rhetoric is less inflammatory than the Trump White House, which routinely referred to Covid as the “China virus” and blamed Beijing for “ripping off” Americans. But still, they argue, Biden’s team is painting China as America's main global adversary. And they say his team is trying to align U.S. allies to confront Beijing.
“When U.S. foreign policy starts portraying a country as a threat, inevitably people who are from that country or assumed to be also start to be seen as a threat,” said Tobita Chow, director of the progressive trade advocacy group Justice Is Global.
Especially worrying, activists say, is rhetoric from both parties that seeks to cast China as the “unifying villain” uniting global allies and the two domestic political parties behind a common cause. Instead, they say U.S. officials should criticize China where warranted, but avoid sweeping assumptions about it being a direct threat to U.S. national security.
“As troubling as our current situation is, I am concerned that things are going to get much worse as U.S.-China tensions grow,” former White House Cabinet Secretary Christopher Lu told The Washington Post last week.
COMING SOON
Catherine Kim is reporting on Korean evangelical churches in the Atlanta area, and how they are mobilizing to get Korean Americans more involved in civic life. Here’s a teaser:
Keep an eye out for her story this week.
TIME CAPSULE
After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, xenophobia was particularly nasty and Japanese Americans — or those who looked Japanese — were subject to racist attacks and suspicion. In March, 1942, the U.S. government formed the War Relocation Authority, with a mandate was to “take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war.” More than 100,000 people of Japanese descent were rounded up and placed in internment camps. Many lost everything. In 1988, Congress passed a law acknowledging and apologizing for the injustice, paying $20,000 in reparations for each survivor.
THE RECAST EXCLUSIVE
Black Americans, who were among the hardest-hit by coronavirus layoffs, are now recovering at the slowest rate, a one-two punch that threatens to worsen the U.S.’s already stark wealth and income disparities long after the pandemic recedes, reports POLITICO’S Megan Cassella.
Latino workers initially saw the sharpest uptick in unemployment during the shutdown. But Black workers have seen a slower return to work — even as the economy is poised for a robust rebound, government data and economic analyses show.
The data is fueling fears the nascent recovery will not be shared evenly, exacerbating income and wealth inequality. The trend is reminiscent of the Great Recession, when Black workers saw a worse downturn and slower rate of return to normal.
And this time, it has caught the attention of top policymakers across the Biden administration and in Congress.
“We’re trying to make sure that it is not like so many other recoveries,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the most senior Black lawmaker in Congress and chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. “Slow for everybody, and a snail’s pace for Black and brown communities.”
THE RECAST RECOMMENDS
Check out this pronunciation guide the Asian American Journalists Association created for the victims in Atlanta with Chinese- and Korean-language names.
Texas Monthly released an online issue celebrating Selena, “The Queen of Tejano.” If she’d lived, Selena would be turning 50 this year. In her honor, Latino writers penned odes to the slain Texas icon.
New podcast drops Wednesday: Slate is launching an internet culture podcast called “ICYMI” to make sense of the Twitter feuds, TikTok challenges and online nonsense. “We’ll avoid saying the words c*ncel c*lture and d*scourse as much as possible — or at least unironically,” said host Rachelle Hampton.
Read all about it: Evanston, Ill., home of Northwestern University, passed a $10 million, first-in-the-nation reparations program that will make $400,000 available in $25,000 homeownership and improvement grants for descendents of the city’s first Black residents.
Because we all could use a little joy — and music — in our lives, we were geeked to see this trailer for Lin Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” We. Are. Here. For. It.
TikTok of the week: Some of us are undercover race agents. What we hear isn’t pretty.
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