- More than 80% of
Asian Americans say violence against them is on the rise, a Pew Research Study shows. - The study was conducted earlier this month, following the Atlanta-area spa shootings.
- One-third of
Asian American respondents say they fear a threat or physical attack.
Asian Americans - more so than any other racial or ethnic group - say violence against them is on the rise.
Amid a surge in hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the
And though 81% of Asian Americans say they're facing increased violence, the share of all US adults who say the same is 56%.
The study was conducted earlier this month, following the March shooting of three Atlanta-area spas that left eight dead, including six Asian women. Researchers conducted interviews in both English and Spanish and garnered responses from more than 5,000 adults of all races, including 352 Asian Americans.
Nearly half of Asian adults say they've experienced at least one of five specific offensive incidents since March 2020, including being the subject of slurs or jokes, being blamed for COVID-19, or being told to go back to their home country, the study found.
Meanwhile, 32% said someone has "expressed support" for them during the same time frame.
Survey respondents gave a variety of reasons for why they think violence against them is rising, including 20% who directly blamed former President Donald Trump's rhetoric about the "kung flu" or "Chinese flu," and 15% who said the increased violence is a result of COVID-19's impacts on the country. Respondents also cited racism in the United States as the source of violence as well as scapegoating Asians as the cause of the virus.
The Asian population in the US had the fastest growth rate among all racial and ethnic groups between 2000 and 2019 and now numbers more than 20 million, according to Pew Research.
But while most Asian Americans think violence against them is rising, people's individual experiences with discrimination is in actuality, about the same as before the pandemic. Seventy-three percent of Asian American respondents in the April survey said they have personally dealt with discrimination or been treated unfairly, which is about the same as the research center's pre-pandemic survey found when 76% of Asian adults said they had faced discrimination.
Janelle Wong, professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, told NBC News that the group's perceived rise in violence amid the reality of an unchanged rate of discrimination highlights the important difference between stoking fear and raising awareness.
"Stoking fear can be problematic in that it may lead us to focus our energies on the wrong targets," Wong told NBC Asian America. "If the problem is that racial discrimination against Asian Americans has always been with us and is not new or surging, that calls for a long-term approach - one that involves education and investment in community and racial justice organizations that provide consistent support."