We, members of the Asian American Research Center on Health (ARCH) are heartbroken and angry at the deadly violence that occurred in Georgia on March 16, 2021. Equally troubling is the response by government officials that are supposed to serve and protect — quickly dismissing the event as racially motivated, surmising that the shooter was “having a bad day.” We mourn the 8 individuals who were killed, 6 of whom are Asian immigrant women. We are alarmed and saddened by the escalating anti-Asian violence that is occurring in our nation, while also acknowledging that anti-Asian racism and misogyny is not something new.

White supremacy and racism have been part of U.S. history since its occupation from Native Americans in 1492. Asian Americans have dealt with hate and violence for the last 150 years in the U.S. Asian Americans have been used as scapegoats for larger systematic failures in times of crisis — economic downfalls, wars, and most recently the pandemic. In 1875, the Page Act was enacted that specifically prohibited Chinese women from immigrating to the U.S. and deemed them as immoral. The 1877 riot in San Francisco was a 3-day organized massacre waged against Chinese immigrants. In 1907, San Francisco would witness again anti-Asian violence by those who wanted to continue with exclusion and segregation in San Francisco schools. In 1930, white men attacked Filipino men in dance halls in Watsonville, CA which became known as the Watsonville riots. Japanese Americans were unlawfully incarcerated and Japantowns were looted and decimated. Throughout history, stereotypes of Asians as the spreaders of illness and disease, perpetual foreigners, model minorities, and exoticized sexual objects have been used to perpetuate unconscious bias, hate, violence, exclusion and marginalization.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we too have experienced anti-Asian hate. In our discussions with students, patients, healthcare clinicians, neighbors, and community members, we have heard about their encounters with anti-Asian racism. We have heard of Asian elders who fear for their safety. A recent report from Stop AAPI Hate found that Asian women are disproportionately affected by reported violence towards Asian Americans, constituting 68% of the incidents. Asian-owned businesses have been vandalized. As healthcare researchers and clinicians, it would be remiss of us to not acknowledge the debilitating effect of prolonged and sustained discrimination in the form of racism and misogyny. Its harmful effects to our overall health and well-being have been found to be associated with depression, poor sleep, substance use, and cardiovascular-related effects; even fundamental changes in our very own genetic makeup with the shortening of telomeres. Evidently, anti-Asian hate is killing us in a variety of ways.

Moving forward we recognize the need to create proactive and sustainable changes to prevent hate not just targeting Asian Americans, particularly Asian American women and elders, but also Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color and other gender minorities. We need to acknowledge the complexities and intersectionalities that lead to these acts of violence. We need continual education, community support and elimination of structural barriers that enable or support racism. Unfortunately, as society is increasingly acknowledging, Asian Americans are not immune to race-based violence, and these acts are further exacerbated by intersectional discrimination leaving immigrant, elderly and female Asian Americans especially vulnerable.

Asian Americans are ignored, or often glossed over as the model minority even by those institutions who are supposed to serve, protect and represent us. Asian Americans health research is the least likely to get funded by federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. As faculty and researchers, we do this important difficult work because of our commitment to our communities. However, to be sustainable, this work requires institutional support that makes visible Asian American experiences, not just today, but regularly and always. We also need researchers, government agencies, and policymakers to recognize the heterogeneity of the Asian American population and practice the active outreach to Asian American communities to enact data disaggregation which will help us identify inequities in the Asian American population. We recognize all of the unpaid and often unseen labor that Asian Americans and Asian American community-based organizations and social services on the frontlines do each day to help the most vulnerable members of the Asian American community including the immigrant, working- class and undocumented. And there’s even more we can do together.

Asian American Research Center on Health (ARCH) is an organization made up of researchers, community leaders, and clinicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Formed in 2013, ARCH works to promote health research to promote health and health equity in partnership with Asian American communities. www.asianarch.org Asian American Community Meetings

Asian American Community Resources

• Stop AAPI Hate https://stopaapihate.org
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/