William: Throughout the
pandemic, Asian Americans have
endured racist and physical
threats.
As the U.S. Celebrates
asian-american and pacific
islander heritage month, new
research is calling attention to
this rise in anti-asian
sentiment, and the toll it's
taking on asian-american
communities.
Amna nawaz spoke recently with
the head of the asian-american
foundation.
Amna: One in two Asian Americans
report feeling unsafe in the
U.S. Due to their ethnicity,
that's according to a new report
from the Asian American
foundation mining attitudes
and stereotypes toward Asian
Americans.
Among the findings, nearly 80%
of Asian Americans do not feel
they fully belong and are
accepted while more than half
don't feel safe in public
places, a national survey found.
What's more, nearly 1 in 5
Americans believe Asian
Americans are partly responsible
for covid-19.
Norman Chen is the CEO of the
Asian American foundation.
Thank you, welcome.
Norman: Thank you for having us.
Amna: These were some findings
from your third annual survey of
Asian Americans.
What have you seen over time are
, these numbers getting better
or worse?
Norman: They've been largely
consistent over the last three
years.
We've seen more increasing
concern during covid about
attacks against our community in
the blaming of Asian Americans
for covid-19.
But this latest question about
the safety level really
disturbed us.
The fact that over half of Asian
Americans felt unsafe.
They felt unsafe in public
transportation on subways.
, They felt unsafe in their own
neighborhoods in their own
, schools and their own
workplaces.
So that was very concerning for
all of us.
Amna: How much of that do you
link directly to the pandemic?
I remember when we reported on
the surge of anti-asian rhetoric
my remember friends telling me
they would not let friends or
family go out alone because they
were worried about attacks.
Has that dissipated as we moved
out of the pandemic?
Norman: I think a lot of it was
due to covid-19 and the
pandemic, but also recalls just
the fact that Asian Americans
have been feeling attacked in
this country for decades, for
generations.
This year's survey really
highlighted for us that those
three stereotypes of the
perpetual foreigner yellow peril
, and the model minority myth
really reared their ugly heads
in the results.
And so this is not just a
phenomenon due to covid-19.
It's really been something
that's been in our history for a
long time.
What was particularly new this
year was the belonging question.
Last year was the first time we
asked how much do you really
feel like you truly belong in
this country and Asian Americans
were the least likely to feel
they belong.
They tell us they feel like they
don't belong because of these
attacks.
There's a direct correlation
between the incidents, the
frequency of these attacks, and
our community's lack of feeling
like we truly belong.
The second reason they mentioned
was the lack of representation,
lack of seeing role models in
-- models and Asian Americans in
senior leadership positions.
So those are new insights that
we want to work on.
Amna: That feeling of not
belonging or feeling safe, what
impact does that have in terms
of how people live, their mental
health and well-being?
Norman: A tremendously negative
impact.
If you don't feel like you are
safe, you don't feel like you
can belong.
You remember in Maslow's
hierarchy of needs, we cannot
thrive, we cannot succeed, we
cannot be respected by others.
And so it's fundamental that we
believe that we belong and that
we feel safe in our society.
And this really has a damaging
effect on mental health for our
community.
Mental health is a significant
problem for the aapi community
as for other communities, but we
have a terrible statistic that
among aapi youth ages 15 to 24
suicide is the leading cause of
death.
Amna: As you know, anti Asian
sentiment goes back to the
earliest days of our nation, the
very first significant law
restricting immigration in
America was targeting Chinese
people.
We as a nation incarcerated tens
of thousands of Japanese
Americans during World War II.
Is what we're seeing now, just
the latest chapter in that
ongoing story?
Norman: We are seeing a
recurrence of it in many ways,
but of course it's unique to
this time.
The recent attacks we've seen in
Atlanta, and even in Allen
, Texas, make us really
concerned about increasing anti
Asian sentiment in this country.
The rhetoric in the media, among
politicians has led to more anti
China sentiment which leads to
anti Asian American sentiment.
We need to be very careful to
manage that to make sure we
don't inflame tensions and
antagonism towards our
community.
Amna: At the same time I want to
point out your survey found 75%
of Americans said they see these
racist attacks against Asian
Americans as a problem.
There is awareness and
acknowledgment.
Is that progress?
Norman: There are some signs of
progress in our survey this
year.
Aside from that awareness a lot
, of people in our survey when
we ask them what we can do to
try to help build relations with
the aapi community.
Number one answer was greater
interaction.
So that was very encouraging.
People are open to having more
interaction and getting to know
aapi members better which is
wonderful.
The second answer was education,
which we've known as always very
very important.
We want to promote more
knowledge of Asian American and
pacific islander history as
American history.
Amna: Norman Chen, CEO Asian
American foundation.
Great to speak with you.
Thank you for joining us.
Norman: Thank you very much.
♪♪