Like many oth­er com­mu­ni­ties, South Asians have long expe­ri­enced xeno­pho­bic rhetoric, bias, and vio­lence. Many of those who first immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States were sub­ject­ to anti-immi­­grant rhetoric and dri­ven out of towns where they set­tled. After 1965, South Asians increas­ing­ly expe­ri­enced bias in the work­place, whether in pay inequity or social stig­ma for lan­guage abil­i­tys. Soon after, larg­er com­mu­ni­ties of South Asian work­ing class immi­grants moved to urban areas, where they faced tar­get­ed alien­ation and vio­lence; most of this vio­lence was xeno­pho­bic in nature.

Since Sep­tem­ber 11th, how­ev­er, South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, and South West Asians have become the tar­gets of a more specif­i­cal­ly xeno­pho­bic form of Islam­o­pho­bia, result­ing in numer­ous hate crimes, as well as employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion, bul­ly­ing, harass­ment, and pro­fil­ing. In this same peri­od, places of wor­ship were increas­ing­ly van­dal­ized and attacked, includ­ing the trag­ic shoot­ing of the Sikh gur­d­wara in Oak Creek, Wis­con­sin and hate crimes against Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers (and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers racial­ized as Mus­lim) grew in num­bers. Though this form of Islam­o­pho­bic vio­lence did not cease, its rate of increase slowed – until around 2015, when then-Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, Don­ald J. Trump, used nation­al plat­forms to pro­mote Islam­o­pho­bic, xeno­pho­bic, and racist rhetoric. As a direct result of this, SAALT,  along with our allies, began track­ing hate crimes against Mus­lims and those racial­ized as Mus­lim. This data­base was active from 2015 to 2021, and pri­or­i­tized report­ing that cen­tered sur­vivors’ and vic­tims’ expe­ri­ences with vio­lence and harm. Start­ing in 2022, this data­base is shift­ing to bet­ter under­stand how sur­vivors and vic­tims of hate vio­lence call for heal­ing and jus­tice for them­selves, their loved ones, and their allies. To under­stand our new approach to doc­u­ment­ing and respond­ing to hate vio­lence, reach out to info@saalt.org.

If you would like to report an inci­dent, we ask that you reach out to our allies at Stop AAPI Hate or OCA at this link. At present, SAALT is avail­able to assist com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with spe­cif­ic trans­la­tion and legal requests, through our work with the South Asian Rapid Response Net­work. As a non-legal advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, SAALT is here to con­nect com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with allies who can pro­vide spe­cif­ic resources.

SAALT RESOURCES ON HATE CRIMES AND XENOPHOBIA

• Under Sus­pi­cion, Under Attack: Xeno­pho­bic Polit­i­cal Rhetoric and Hate Vio­lence against South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, Hin­du, Mid­dle East­ern, and Arab Com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States (2014)
• SAALT State­ment on Trag­ic Shoot­ing in Kansas City(April 2014)
• Huff­in­g­ton Post: Safe Com­mu­ni­ties Start With Each of Us by Deepa Iyer (Jan­u­ary 2013)
• SAALT Sup­ports New Cur­ricu­lum for Teach­ers and Edu­ca­tors on Bul­ly­ing and Xeno­pho­bia (2013)
• SAALT Rec­om­men­da­tions for Enhanced Report­ing and Col­lec­tion of Hate Crimes to the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion(Decem­ber 2012)
• NJ.com: Wis­con­sin Sikh Tem­ple Shoot­ing Recall New Jer­sey’s Dot­busters by Deepa Iyer (Sep­tem­ber 2012)
• SAALT State­ment of the Record for the Sen­ate Hate Crime Hear­ing (Sep­tem­ber 2012)
• Hate Crimes: A Quick Infor­ma­tion Sheet for South Asians (Sep­tem­ber 2012)
• SAALT Let­ter Regard­ing U.S. Sen­ate Can­di­date Pete Hoek­stra’s Anti-Chi­­nese Ad Web­site (Feb­ru­ary 2012)
• SAALT Let­ter Regard­ing Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date Newt Gin­grich’s Com­ments on Mus­lim Can­di­dates (Jan­u­ary 2012)
• SAALT’s Let­ter Regard­ing Tenessee State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Wom­ick­’s Com­ments Regard­ing Mus­lims in the Mil­i­tary(Novem­ber 2011)
• SAALT Let­ter Regard­ing Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date Newt Gin­grich’s Com­ments on Mus­lim Can­di­dates (Novem­ber 2011)
• Joint Res­o­lu­tion from Con­gress­men John Cony­ers, Hansen Clarke, and Andre Car­son on Coun­ter­ing Rhetoric and Vio­lence Against Mus­lim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ties (2011)
• Dis­crim­i­na­tion Unde­terred: Xeno­pho­bic Rhetoric, Pro­fil­ing, and Dis­crim­i­na­tion Affect­ing South Asian, Mus­lim, and Sikh Com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States — Arti­cle in Satyam: The Chi­ca­­go-Kent Col­lege of Law’s Jour­nal on South Asian and the Law (2011)
• From Maca­cas to Tur­ban Top­pers: The Rise in Xeno­pho­bic and Racist Rhetoric in Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Dis­course (Octo­ber 2010)
• List of Anti-Park51 State­ments Made by Elect­ed Offi­cials and Polit­i­cal Can­di­dates (Sep­tem­ber 2010)
• Let­ter to Amer­i­cans for Job Secu­ri­ty regard­ing Xeno­pho­bic Out­sourc­ing Ad (May 2010)
• SAALT State­ment on Pas­sage of Hate Crimes Bill (2009)
• Amer­i­can Back­lash: Ter­ror­ist Bring War Home in More Ways Than One Report on hate crimes and bias inci­dents against the Arab, Mid­dle East­ern, Mus­lim, Sikh, and South Asian com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing 9/11 (2001)
• FAQ about the Matthew Shep­ard Hate Crimes Pre­ven­tion Act (2009)
• Civ­il Rights Tran­si­tion Paper (Decem­ber 2008)
• Address­ing and Respond­ing to Bias to Out­sourc­ing Factsheet
• Hate Crimes: Com­mu­ni­ty Wide Impact Factsheet

ALLY ORGANIZATIONS

• Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Relations
• Japan­ese Amer­i­cans Cit­i­zens League
• Orga­ni­za­tion of Chi­nese Americans
• Mus­lim Pub­lic Affairs Coun­cil (MPAC)
• South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter (SPLC)
• Sikh Coali­tion
• Sikh Amer­i­can Legal Defense and Edu­ca­tion Fund (SALDEF)
• UNITED SIKHS