8 in 10 Asian Americans say violence against them is increasing: poll

Approximately 8 in 10 Asian Americans say violence against them is increasing in the U.S., according to a new poll. 

The survey, published on Thursday by the Pew Research Center, found that 81 percent of the Asian American adults surveyed said violence against Asian Americans in the U.S. is increasing.

Six percent of respondents said violence against Asian Americans is staying the same, while two percent said it is decreasing.

Nine percent of survey respondents said they were not sure.

The survey also found that 45 percent of Asian American adults said they had experienced at least one of five incidents: fearing that someone might threaten or physically attack them, people acting as if they were uncomfortable around them, being subjected to racial slurs or jokes, someone remarking that they should go back to their home country and someone making a remark that they are to blame for the coronavirus pandemic.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them. Fourteen percent said someone made a remark that they are to blame for the coronavirus pandemic.

Twenty-seven percent of survey respondents said people have acted as if they were uncomfortable around them, down from 39 percent who said the same in June 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

The poll also found that 1 in 5 respondents cited former President Trump’s rhetoric about China and the coronavirus pandemic as a reason for the uptick in violence against Asian Americans. Trump during his time in office regularly railed against China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic after COVID-19’s first documented origins in the country.

He also used racially charged terms like “China virus” or “kung flu” to describe COVID-19.

Sixteen percent of survey respondents said violence against Asian Americans is increasing in the U.S. due to broader racism against Asian people.

Studies have shown that hate crimes and violence against Asian people have risen over the past year across the country. One study from California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism showed that hate crimes against Asian Americans in 16 of the country’s largest cities increased nearly 150 percent in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A gunman in March killed eight people, including six Asian women, in a shooting spree in the Atlanta area. The shooting emphasized concerns about violence against Asian people in the U.S., although police did not immediately confirm race was a motive for the shooting.

The survey published Thursday is part of the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. It surveyed 5,109 U.S. adults from April 5 to 11, including 352 Asian people. The margin of sampling error of the full survey pool is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.