WASHINGTON (The Hill) - Nearly three-quarters of women in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community reported experiencing racism and discrimination in the past year, a new survey found.
“The State of Safety for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women in the U.S.,” a survey released Thursday by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, found that more than half of the reported incidents occurred in public and were perpetrated by a stranger.
The group surveyed more than 2,400 AAPI women across every region in the U.S.
“This past year, our community has experienced a 339% jump in hate crimes – with AAPI women disproportionately being the targets of this hate and violence,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the nonprofit, said in a press release.
Meanwhile, nearly 40 percent of women survey said they’ve experienced sexual harassment over the last year while more than half of the respondents said they feel less safe today than they did at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The results of this survey are striking and far reaching. The climate of fear and anxiety created by persistent discrimination, harassment and violence is more than an issue of safety for AAPI women — it endangers their mental health, wellbeing, and happiness,” Kyung B. Yoon, president of Korean American Community Foundation (KACF), said in a news release.
Survey respondents also reported heightened levels of anxiety with 71 percent saying they feel stressed over fear of discrimination. Choimorrow said she was not surprised by this finding.
“AAPI women have long endured misogyny and racism for centuries and these findings show how this history continues to bleed into our grim present,” Choimorrow said.