More Than 9,000 Hate Incidents Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Reported Since Pandemic Began

A new national report from the nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate shows that more than 9,000 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been reported in the U.S. since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report, released Thursday, spans incidents that occurred from March 19, 2020 to June 30, 2021. During that time period, Stop AAPI Hate received a total of 9,081 incident reports. Between the months of April and June of this year alone, the total jumped from 6,603 to 9,081. All told, roughly half of the reported incidents (4,548) occurred last year.

The bulk of the reported incidents are comprised of verbal harassment (63.7 percent) and shunning (16.5 percent), the latter of which refers to a person who deliberately avoids Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Meanwhile, physical assault accounts for 13.7 percent of the reported incidents. Other violent acts mentioned in the report include being coughed at or spat on (8.5 percent), civil rights violations (11 percent), and online harassment (8.3 percent).

Of the incidents, more than 63 percent involve the targeting of women. While verbal harassment and shunning saw a decrease between 2020 and 2021, other types of aggressive behavior—physical assaults, vandalism, and online harassment—saw increases.

Click here to read the report in full.

A frequent occurrence in such hate incidents, including straight from the White House via the previous administration, is the scapegoating of China and Chinese people for the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, Trump was sued for just under $23 million by the Chinese Americans Civil Rights Coalition for referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus.”