TRACKING HATE

"SAALT, along with our allies, have been tracking incidents of hate violence against South Asian, Sikh, Muslim, and Arab communities since November 2015. As of March 2020, SAALT has expanded its hate tracking to include COVID-19 related incidents of hate violence targeting Asian Americans."

Since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, East Asian allies and those racial­ized as East Asian have expe­ri­enced a spike in hate vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion. Our AAPI part­ners, OCA, Nation­al Coun­cil of Asian Pacif­ic Amer­i­cans, Chi­nese for Affir­ma­tive Action and Asian Pacif­ic Plan­ning and Pol­i­cy Coun­cil, have links of report­ing inci­dents on their web­sites, and we encour­age folks to find the right space to report their experiences: 

  • The Asian Pacif­ic Pol­i­cy and Plan­ning Coun­cil, A3PCON, has in-lan­guage hate inci­dent report­ing guides, includ­ing ones in Hin­di and Pun­jabi. You can view them here
  • Chi­nese for Affir­ma­tive Action also has in-lan­guage hate inci­dent report­ing guides, avail­able here in Pun­jabi, Thai, and more.

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.
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.