More than 1,600 Asians reported hate-related incidents in California since last March

The Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center received 1,691 reports of anti-Asian discrimination in California between March 2020 and February this year, according to data released Tuesday.

Nationwide, from March 19, 2020 to Feb. 28 this year, 3,795 incidents of anti-Asian racism were self-reported to the center, ranging from verbal abuse to physical assault and being refused service for being Asian. About 44.56% of those reports were from California.

The data indicate an increase from the 1,116 incidents reported in California between March and July last year, although study authors noted additional 2020 incidents were reported retroactively in 2021. The center received 503 reports of anti-Asian discrimination occurring during the first two months of 2021 alone.

The new study comes after a rise in anti-Asian discrimination and violence in recent months, especially in the Bay Area. In south Sacramento, a dead cat was left in the parking lot of a Chinese-owned butcher shop in February.

“Hate incidents are not abating,” Russell Jeung, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, said in a statement. “We cannot let anti-Asian American hate be a legacy of COVID-19 or the last presidential administration, but that’s exactly what will happen unless we demand concrete action.”

Of the types of incidents reported, verbal harassment accounted for most of the reports at 68.1%, followed by avoidance or shunning at 20.5%. Reports of discrimination most frequently occurred at businesses, making up 35.4% of reports, followed by public streets, where 25.3% of incidents took place.

Chinese people were still the most likely to report at about 42.2%, followed by Koreans at 14.8%. Women also reported anti-Asian incidents 2.3 times more frequently than men.

Anonymous reports of assault, verbal and online harassment

Anonymous reports ranged from people being yelled at and followed in grocery stores to people being spat on and finding graffiti with racial slurs outside their businesses. One report from Elk Grove occurred during a protest, the study said.

“A white man driving a silver Mercedes drove past the first wave of Asian protesters yelling out of his window at them, ‘Stupid f------ Asians!’” the anonymous Elk Grove report stated. “Afterwards, he drove to where the remaining Asian protesters stood and was witnessed by multiple protesters aggressively driving onto the walkway where several protesters were gathered. Several elderly Hmong women jumped out of the way. An 8-year-old boy,who stood in the path of the oncoming vehicle, was startled into action and quickly moved out of the way towards safety.”

“I was trying to enroll my daughter in a gymnastics class and had left several messages to call back,” read one report from Tustin. “I was finally able to speak with the owner of the business and asked why he had not returned my phone calls, and was told that he did not like my name which is obviously Asian and he would not accept our daughter into his gym. I was so shocked at his blatant statement and hung up the phone.”

One person in Milpitas reported an older man shouting at them in a shopping center, threatening to take away their citizenship; a report from Cupertino recalled being harassed and told to leave a store after the workers blamed “you Chinese” for COVID-19.

Last month, California legislators allocated $1.4 million to support the Stop AAPI Hate center’s research and help track more incidents of anti-Asian discrimination, and introduced a bill to create a hotline for reporting hate crimes.

This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 10:44 AM.