“From 1980 to 2015, the share of multiracial and multiethnic babies born in the U.S. tripled – although still only 14 percent of the total number of births, according to Pew Research Center.
“While the majority of multiethnic babies had either one white and one Hispanic parent or two multiracial parents, Pew found 14 percent had one white and one Asian parent, three percent had one Hispanic and one Asian parent, and one percent had one black parent and one Asian parent.”
– Pew Research Center, s review of 2018 data from the U.S. Census
NBC News reports that cultural awareness and prevalence of part-Asian people is rising with their numbers in the United States. As of about five years ago, Asians and multiracial people had become the fastest-growing demographic groups in the country.
It’s a phenomenal shift since the time of Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court ruling that struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
Pew Research (2015) of 2018 U.S. Census Bureau data found that 6.2 million adults in America – or 2.4% of the country’s adult population – reported being of two or more races. Of these Americans, 22% are White and American Indian, 21% are Black and White, 20% are White and Asian American, 4% are Black and American Indian and 2% are Black and Asian American.
The 2000 census had been the first time Americans were able to choose more than one race to describe themselves, allowing for an estimate of the nation’s multiracial population.
The 2015 study used a broader definition of the term – one that took into account how adults described their own race as well as the racial background of their parents and grandparents. Pew Research Center estimated that 6.9% of the U.S. adult population could be considered multiracial.
The 2015 study also explored the attitudes and experiences of these adults, revealing the complexities of multiracial identity. Some of these findings include the following:
1. Racial identity can change over the course of one’s life.
2. Most adults with a background that includes more than one race do not consider themselves “multiracial.”
3. Multiracial adults see themselves as more open to other cultures and more understanding of people of different backgrounds.
4. For multiracial adults, experiences with discrimination are often tied to racial perceptions.
5. Most Hispanic adults see being Hispanic as part of their racial background.
(Celeste Katz Marston. “'What are you?' How multiracial Americans respond and how it's changing. “ NBC News. February 28, 2021.)
Special Significance For Asian Americans
Since the start of the pandemic last spring, Asian Americans have faced racist violence at a much higher rate than previous years. The NYPD reported that hate crimes motivated by anti-Asian sentiment jumped 1,900% in New York City in 2020.
Stop AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Hate, a reporting database created at the beginning of the pandemic as a response to the increase in racial violence, received 2,808 reports of anti-Asian discrimination between March 19 and December 31, 2020.
While anti-Asian violence has taken place nationwide and particularly in major cities, the uptick in attacks in 2021 has been particularly focused in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco and Oakland’s Chinatowns.
In April 2020, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Trump noting guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising against terms, such as "Chinese virus" and "Wuhan virus," that "exacerbate prejudice and discrimination in ways that place lives at risk of violence." Trump didn't listen and continued his divisive rhetoric.
“The last four years were a step backwards in the integration of the Asian American story in the United States.”
– Rep. Ro Khanna of California
President Joe Biden signed an executive order denouncing anti-Asian discrimination shortly after taking office in January 2021. In the order, Biden said …
“The federal government must recognize that it has played a role in furthering these xenophobic sentiments through the actions of political leaders, including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin.
“Such statements have stoked unfounded fears and perpetuated stigma about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and have contributed to increasing rates of bullying, harassment, and hate crimes against AAPI persons.”
(Cady Lang. “Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans Are on the Rise. Many Say More Policing Isn't the Answer.” Time. February 18, 2021.)
“There’s a clear correlation between President Trump’s incendiary comments, his insistence on using the term ‘Chinese virus’ and the subsequent hate speech spread on social media and the hate violence directed towards us,” says Russell Jeung, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. “It gives people license to attack us. The current spate of attacks on our elderly is part of how that rhetoric has impacted the broader population.”
In doing so, Trump followed in a long American history of using diseases to justify anti-Asian xenophobia, one that dates back to the 19th and 20th centuries and has helped to shape perception of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners.”
(Cady Lang. “Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans Are on the Rise. Many Say More Policing Isn't the Answer.” Time. February 18, 2021.)
Many have also pointed out that racial violence against Asian Americans often goes overlooked because of persistent stereotypes about the community. “There is a stereotype and an assumption that Asian Americans have class privilege, that they have high socioeconomic status and education, and that any discrimination doesn’t really happen or feel legitimate,” says Bianca Mabute-Louie, a racial justice educator. “There are these assumptions about ways that Asian Americans have ‘succeeded’ in this country.”
(Khushi Nigam. “Stopping AAPI hate and bullying in California high schools.” lifeofteen.com. February 22, 2021.)
Mabute-Louie cites the pervasiveness of the “Model Minority Myth” as a large contributing factor to the current climate. That false idea, constructed during the Civil Rights era to stymie racial justice movements, suggests that Asian Americans are more successful than other ethnic minorities because of hard work, education and inherently law-abiding natures. Mabute-Louie says …
“This contributes to erasing the very real interpersonal violence that we see happening in these videos, and that Asian Americans experience from the day-to-day, things that don’t get reported and the things that don’t get filmed.”
“The model minority myth chooses to highlight the successful immigrant examples and brush aside the high rates of poverty. The myth assumes that we somehow have the capacity to work ourselves out of poverty without any help.”
– Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the social services nonprofit Asian American Federation
Because the Model Minority Myth suggests upward mobility, it creates a fallacy that Asian Americans don’t experience struggle or racial discrimination, a stereotype that’s been bolstered by limited (and in some cases, flawed) media representation like the film Crazy Rich Asians and more recently, Netflix’s Bling Empire.
In reality, the community is America’s most economically divided: a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that Asian Americans experience the largest income inequality gap as an ethnic and racial group in the U.S. and a 2016 report from NYC Mayor’s Office of Operations found that Asian immigrants have the highest poverty rates in the city.
(Kimberly Yam. “Asian-Americans Have Highest Poverty Rate In NYC, But Stereotypes Make The Issue Invisible.” Huffington Post. May 08, 2017.)
That myth has long been used by white Americans to pit and separate Asian Americans from other people of color, and to justify institutional racism. It may also account for the fact that according to one of the few existing research reports on anti-Asian hate published this January in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Asian Americans have a relatively higher chance than Blacks or Latinos to experience hate crimes perpetrated by non-white offenders.
“If you are trying to decrease the level of stigma, decrease the level of discrimination and hate and xenophobia … words matter.”
– John C. Yang of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC
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