While May is AAPI heritage month, there has been a troubling increase in violent crimes, racism and prejudice against their community. 

Racism against Asian Americans is not new, though for far too long it was ignored. Asian Americans were seen as a “model minority,” and their experiences were not heard. An article from New York magazine in 2017 continued to share the myth. According to the article:

“Today, Asian-Americans are among the most prosperous, well-educated, and successful ethnic groups in America. What gives? It couldn’t possibly be that they maintained solid two-parent family structures, had social networks that looked after one another, placed enormous emphasis on education and hard work, and thereby turned false, negative stereotypes into true, positive ones, could it? It couldn’t be that all whites are not racists or that the American dream still lives?”

COVID-19 was not the beginning of hatred towards Asian Americans; however, it has made the issue worse.

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 46% of Asian Americans have experienced a painful incident tied to their racial or ethnic background since the pandemic started.

According to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino, hate crimes increased by 169% in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the same time last year.

In late March, a gunman killed eight people at three spas in Atlanta. Of the eight who were killed, six of them were women of Asian descent. At the time, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said, “we also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable, it is hateful and it has to stop.”

Some effort has been made to address the issue. On April 22, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation that aims to better track hate crimes against the AAPI community and provide local police departments with more resources to investigate them. The lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Mazie Hirono, said the bill is important for those “who have often felt very invisible in our country, always seen as foreign, always seen as the other.”

There are still more steps to take in the process. The House of Representatives must also pass the legislation, and President Joe Biden must still sign the bill into law. Both have signaled their support for the bill.

However, addressing the hate must go beyond legislation. There needs to be a discussion about the hate and violence Asian Americans face, and why it too often goes ignored.

This bill is a good start, but if we want to stop racism against the AAPI community, it must first be acknowledged. There are some things that legislation cannot fix altogether, and one of them is racism against a community. Pretending something does not exist does not make that thing go away.