Asian American community in the United States faces impact of pandemic combined with racism: report

People walk on a street in Manhattan’s Chinatown in New York, the United States, June 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Anti-Asian racism is deeply rooted in American society, dating back to before the original Asian Exclusion Act of the 1880s, but it has increased during the pandemic with anti-Asian rhetoric from politicians.

NEW YORK, April 14 (Xinhua) — Asian Americans in the United States face a triple threat of racial prejudice, community mental health issues and economic loss, according to a new report from the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston).

Fifty-four percent of Chinese respondents and more than a third of Vietnamese respondents said people were afraid of them because of their race, state-run media organization GBH NEWS in Boston, Massachusetts reported on Wednesday. .

More than a quarter of Vietnamese respondents said they felt threatened or harassed because of their race, and 15% of Chinese respondents said the same, according to the UMass Boston survey.

The report was the first to reach the Asian American community in the region using a multilingual questionnaire, reaching 199 respondents from various parts of Boston, Malden, Quincy, Everett and Cambridge.

Anti-Asian racism is deeply rooted in American society, dating back to before the original Asian Exclusion Act of the 1880s, but it has increased during the pandemic with anti-Asian rhetoric from politicians, Jyoti Sinha, founder of the South Asian Workers ‘Center and professor at UMass Boston, was quoted as saying.

(Web Editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)