The Asian American/ Asian Research Institute (AAARI) is an integral part of The City University of New York (CUNY), engaged in university-wide scholarly research, teaching, and serving as a vital resource center for policies and issues that affect Asians and Asian Americans. AAARI unequivocally and emphatically condemns violence, hate crimes, and racism against the Asian-American community that have erupted throughout the United States and calls for an immediate end to these violent attacks against Asian Americans. AAARI calls upon the CUNY leadership to join us in this effort.
The violence against Asian Americans has instilled fear, anxiety and anger in the community, which activists and elected officials have linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and its characterization by former President Trump, who frequently used (and continues to use) racist language to refer to the coronavirus as “China” virus or “Kung-Flu” virus.
In New York City, where Asian Americans make up an estimated 16% of the population, the violence has stoked so much fear that many community members refrain from stepping out of their homes. Because laws against hate crimes are weak or absent in many states, these attacks do not result in hate crime charges. So far this year, two attacks on people of Asian descent have led to hate crime charges in New York. In a third case in February, after a 36-year-old Asian man was stabbed, the NYPD failed to bring hate crime charges against the perpetrator for lack of “concrete” evidence. Chris Kwok, a board member for the Asian American Bar Association of New York, noted that if pandemic-related violence against Asian Americans were charged as hate crimes, that “would have sent a signal that this was unacceptable and that if you were going to target Asian Americans, there would be consequences.”
The contributions of Asian Americans to America have been widespread, comprehensive and significant—ranging from building railroads, farming in California, serving in the armed forces, innovations in science and technology, to fighting against the pandemic—outsize contributions considering they constitute merely 5.6% of the American population. Yet still, Asian Americans have a regrettably well-documented history of being victimized by hate and discrimination; and as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in early 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked by 150% over the previous year, even as overall hate crimes declined, according to data compiled by California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and exclusively shared with VOA (Source: VOA, March 02, 2021).
Other organizations across the United States have reported a substantial rise in anti-Asian American violence over the past year. Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of nonprofits, organizers, and educators who are committed to fighting hate and violence against Asian Americans, received more than 3,800 reports of discrimination and racism from March 2020 through February 28, 2021, with 503 occurring since the beginning of 2021. The NYPD reported a 1,900% increase in violence targeting Asian Americans since 2019. These figures are alarming, although not surprising. According to VOA, Asian Americans—essential workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, medical technicians, engineers, scientists and other professionals—have been in the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. Yet they have been called names, spat on, and attacked. Recently, New Yorker Noel Quintana’s face was slashed by a box cutter while traveling on the subway; no one helped him. An elderly woman was attacked in Queens, resulting in a trip to the hospital where she received multiple stitches. That same day, two other elderly Asian Americans were attacked in Midtown and Harlem, and this was just one week in New York City. In San Francisco, an 84-year-old Thai man died after being viciously attacked.
The virus of xenophobia against Asian Americans has permeated across the United States. To understand the recent increase in anti-Asian American violence, it is critical to understand the history of Asian Americans in America. Without that understanding, the violence against Asian Americans seems transitory and episodic, or random acts of violence. This is simply untrue. In fact, violence against Asian Americans is not new. Asian immigrants have historically been characterized as dirty, dangerous, slothful, and diseased. Chinese immigrants were lynched in Los Angeles in the 1800s, and they were excluded from U.S. citizenship until 1943. On the West Coast, Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, were imprisoned during World War II; Asian Muslims and Sikhs were attacked and some were killed following 9/11. The xenophobia against Asian Americans has been intricately stitched into the fabric of the United States. We are deeply dismayed and disheartened to see this history repeated over and over again.
AAARI is grateful to President Joe Biden for standing up for Asian Americans: On March 11, 2021, President Biden, in a primetime address laying out the path to recovery from the pandemic, roundly condemned anti-Asian racism, stating: “Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated. At this very moment, so many of them, our fellow Americans, they’re on the front lines of this pandemic trying to save lives, and still, still they’re forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America,” Biden noted. “It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it must stop.” AAARI calls upon political, civic, educational, and business leadership across America, including CUNY, to take President Biden’s lead in denouncing violence against Asian Americans and other minorities in no uncertain terms.
Further, AAARI believes that CUNY is uniquely positioned to take a moral and civic responsibility to assume an unmistakable role of leadership against hate crimes. CUNY leadership can play a powerful role to reform the CUNY system that has long ignored Asian Americans, thereby impacting the issues of equity and social justice. Within the CUNY system, Asian Americans are often excluded in conversations about race-based discrimination. This creates the appearance that Asian Americans do not experience racism. Asian American voices are silenced by excluding them in course curriculum; they have been routinely overlooked and excluded from leadership positions in CUNY; they frequently experience bias in tenure and promotion; or they are simply ignored as a “Model Minority.” Such marginalization renders Asian Americans invisible in the grand narrative of American history.
The first Asian American history course was taught in 1970 at the City College of New York (CCNY) by Professor Betty Lee Sung, a co-founder of AAARI. Over the past fifty years (yes, 50 years!), Asian American students, faculty and staff have struggled and fought for an Asian American Studies curriculum at practically all CUNY colleges. At every turn we have been told that there are no resources, there is no interest, and there would be insufficient enrollments. On one campus, the administration surreptitiously eliminated the Asian American Studies minor without any consultations with the faculty. It was only when students went to declare the minor, did the students learn about the elimination. The ensuing outrage and activism of the students forced the administration to relent, but only after the CUNY Central Office intervened and provided funding for the program director.
According to CUNY’s Office of Institutional Research, for 2019, Asians represented 21.2% of CUNY’s overall student body. On seven of the 25 campuses, the Asian student body was between 26.5% and 41.5%. At four campuses, the range was between 20.5% and 24.4%; an additional three campuses had populations ranging between 16.6% and 17.6%, while four other campuses had over 12% Asian students. CUNY’s Office of Human Resource Management reports that in 2019, 14.1 % of all full-time faculty were Asian. Yet, it was not until 2019 that the first Asian American was appointed to the Chancellery; and for the first time in CUNY’s history, Asian Americans were appointed presidents of two campuses in 2020. CUNY is preparing future generations of the workforce and leaders of New York, and beyond. Even more important, CUNY educates 21% of all New York State public school teachers. Yet Asian and Asian American Studies continue to receive little or no support from CUNY colleges or the Central Office.
In the absence of any help from CUNY, Asian American faculty and leaders have formed an alliance to create and fill a pipeline of cohorts for future Asian American leadership at the City University and at other institutions of higher education across America. The alliance calls for more guidance and support for Asian American faculty. If CUNY, as the largest public university, is truly going to fulfill its role as an authentic and real leader in promoting equity and social justice, the CUNY leadership must meaningfully engage with the Asian American community and must recognize the myriad contributions, individual and collective, of Asian Americans, alongside other racial and ethnic communities. CUNY must elevate Asian and Asian American Studies at the junior and senior colleges, and at the Graduate Center. CUNY must also diversify the higher ranks of its leadership to include Asian Americans; and CUNY must provide fair and transparent opportunities for Asian American faculty to grow and achieve their full potential in the CUNY family.
Sincerely,
Asian American and Asian Research Institute – City University of New York:
- Joyce Moy, Executive Director, AAARI-CUNY
Board Members:
- Vinit Parmar, Vice-Chair, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College
- Carol Huang, Secretary, Assistant Professor, The City College of New York
- Young Cheong, Education Coordinator, New Media and Digital Technology; Program Director, CUNY Study Abroad in South Korea; Adjunct Associate Professor, Brooklyn College
- Ravi Kalia, Professor, The City College of New York
- Rose Kim, Associate Professor, Borough of Manhattan Community College
- Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan, Professor, Medgar Evers College
- Catherine Ma, Associate Professor, Kingsborough Community College
- Ann Matsuuchi, Instructional Technology Librarian and Professor, LaGuardia Community College
- Yung-Yi Diana Pan, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College
