Anti-Asian Racism Beliefs and Asian American Political Resistance

• In Event: Intersectionality and Social Movements

Abstract

This paper examines Asian American beliefs about anti-Asian racism and collective political resistance in the contemporary United States. Amidst racial anxieties and xenophobic impulses heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to understand individual-level attitudes and group-based responses to surges in anti-Asian racist rhetoric and hate crimes remains urgent. Yet we still know too little about when and why some Asian Americans perceive a need to politically organize as a group, and potentially across groups, while others do not. In particular, the distinct challenges and barriers that Asian Americans confront have long remained unseen or unrecognized not only outside but also within many Asian communities in the U.S., with previous research showing substantial variation and uncertainty in perceptions of racism among Asian Americans, including and especially racism against their own group. In recent years, however, the racial backlash from those who blame and scapegoat Asian Americans for the start and spread of COVID-19 has received sustained national attention, further crystallizing views about anti-Asian racism among those most directly impacted by it and potentially galvanizing new commitments to organized political resistance. Drawing on data from national surveys of Asian American public opinion and in-depth interviews with Asian respondents (foreign-born/native-born) in three U.S. cities, this paper investigates, first, how Asian Americans define and perceive the racism that targets their communities, paying close attention to differences along lines of ethnic/national origin, immigrant generation, citizenship status, legal status, language, class, gender, and religion; and, second, how perceptions of anti-Asian racism among Asian Americans shape their beliefs about the types of political actions and coalitions needed.

Author

• Julie Lee Merseth, Northwestern University