Rise of Asian Hate During COVID:
- The rising rates of the COVID-19 pandemic have only increased racially-based attacks against Asians (7).
- A national survey of 1,141 US residents in March showed that 40% of the responders engaged in some form of discriminatory behavior directed at individuals of Asian descent (7).
- A survey of Chinese-American parents and children conducted from March of 2020 to May of 2020 saw that approximately half of the responders reported being the targets of online racial discrimination (7).
- In June, the Pew Research Center (2020) surveyed 9,654 US adults and reported that, since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in March, 31% of Asians had been subject to slurs or jokes because of their racial background, compared to 21% for Blacks, 15% for Hispanics, and 8% for whites (7).
- 26% of Asian Americans said that they were afraid of being physically or verbally harassed (7).
- The survey also concluded that more than 40% of US adults agreed that “it has become more common for people to express racist views toward Asians” (7).
- This increase in anti-Asian hate and fear was caused by multiple things: the origin of COVID-19 in China, misleading media reports, coverage, and propaganda, and historical precedents of people of color, specifically Asians in this case, being linked with the spread of certain diseases and being labeled as foreigners (8).
- Given the historical racism that Asians have experienced from the 18th century and onwards in America, experts like H. A. Cheng says: “In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic we see not only a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, but also a recapitulation of history” (8).
Minority Stress Theory:
- The Minority Stress Theory states that prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination create “a hostile and stressful social environment,” which means that higher levels of stressors prevalent in minority groups often cause an increase in the frequency of mental illnesses (9).
- This theory was initially created to understand the mental health conditions of sexual minorities (9).
- Acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder can stem from events of real or perceived racially-motivated discrimination and hateful actions and words, which includes physical threats, humiliating events, or witnessing another person of a minority receive hateful treatment (10).
- Consistent, everyday experiences of racially-charged events and discrimination can lead to a “chronic state” of “racial battle fatigue,” which is taxing on an affected individual’s mental and physical health (10).
Mental Health Among Chinese Americans and Other Asians:
- Perceptions of Sinophobia have been associated with poorer mental health and stability among Asians, especially Chinese parents and, subsequently, their children (11).
- Increased perception of COVID-19-based discrimination has overall lowered the mental wellbeing of Asians in general (11).
- Studies on specific groups, like Chinese students travelling abroad in the US and Chinese travellers, have found they experience more hate crimes and retain fear over being discriminated against and isolated, which likely causes a higher rate of mental illnesses (12).
- Higher rates microaggressions and racial discrimination during the pandemic, targetted at Asian individuals, only contribute to the prevalence of race-related stress and race-based trauma appearing in ethnic Asians (13).
- These discriminatory events, which instill a sense of isolation and worthlessness, lead to the internalization of negative attitudes and self-blame for any discrimination one may receive (13).
The Study:
- 7,778 respondents were given a survey. The respondents were divided into three groups: whites, American-born Asians, and Asian immigrants. Because there was no significant mental health disparity between white immigrants and American-born whites, they were grouped together (16).
- 5,958 of the respondents were non-Hispanic whites, 244 were US-born Asians, and 300 were foreign-born Asians (16).
- The survey included the four-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4), which is used to measure anxiety and depression. The PHQ-4 index ranges from 0 to 12, representing the combined responses to four questions:
- “Over the last two weeks, how often the respondent had been bothered by (1) feeling nervous, anxious or on edge, (2) not being able to stop or control worrying, (3) feeling down, depressed or hopeless, and (4) little interest or pleasure in doing things”. The responses range from 0 = not at all, 1 = several days, 2 = more than half the days, to 3 = nearly every day. Higher scores indicate a lower rate of mental wellbeing and health (17).
- The survey also asked whether the respondent was “treated with less courtesy and respect due to others thinking they had COVID-19, received poorer service due to others thinking they had COVID-19, was threatened or harassed due to others thinking they had COVID-19, and was the subject of other people’s fear due to others thinking they had COVID-19” (18).
Findings:
- White respondents were found to have a depression and anxiety score of 1.98, Asian Americans were found to have a score of 2.96, and Asian immigrants were found to have a score of 2.16 (22).
- This data shows that the mental health gap between Asian Americans and whites is greater than the gap between Asian immigrants and whites (22).
- When compared to people who reported no mental health symptoms at all (with a PHQ-4 score of 0), it was found that 47% of whites had no mental health symptoms, while 33% of Asian Americans and 46% Asian immigrants did (22).
- Changes in mental disorders were also studied: during April of 2020, all three groups experienced a very similar increase in mental disorders, which suggests that all Americans felt stress from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (23).
- That being said, Asian Americans were impacted more during the start of the pandemic when compared to the other two groups, as proven by a consistent severe gap in the graph between Asian Americans and whites/Asian immigrants (23).
- In another part of the study, 11% of whites were found to have experienced COVID-19-related acute discrimination, while 22% of Asian Americans and 21% of Asian immigrants reported experiencing discrimination (25).