There Is No Rung on the Ladder That Protects You From Hate

Many Asian immigrants have higher levels of education than native-born Americans, which is why they settle at the top of the income ladder. At the same time, Asians at the bottom of the ladder have lower education levels. In nearly a dozen conversations this past week with scholars, activists, and historians, the sadness and grief around this inflection point were evident — as was the recognition of how starkly divided two professional paths for Asian immigrants in this country have been. The Asian-American story has been a complicated narrative. Restaurant workers and massage therapists are nested in metropolitan enclaves, but high achievers attend elite schools and end up in well-compensated careers. One generation of immigrants in service jobs often raises the next generation of corporate strivers. At this moment, though, as the population grows, the groups are becoming increasingly isolated.

A community is divided within a nation already divided by politics, religion, and income. After a summer of protests for racial justice and increasing awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement, corporate employees of color, including Asians, demand equity and inclusion, ending a white-dominated culture. The workers in spas and nail salons don’t have the luxury to even think about that; they are more vulnerable to the whims of their white clientele.A community is divided within But the “Kung flu” pandemic — the xenophobic language fueled by President Donald J. Trump that added hate crimes to a deadly disease and the rest of the list of things for Asian Americans to fear this past year — may be gradually bringing people together.

Last year, hate crimes against people of Asian descent in New York City jumped 833 percent from 2019. Nearly 3,800 hate incidents, from name-calling to assault, against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, were reported to Stop AAPI Hate. This group has collected data for the last year. (The number could be higher because not all incidents were reported.) Women wrote sixty-eight percent of those incidents. As the country reeled from the all-too-familiar scenes of mass shootings in Atlanta, especially killings that may have targeted people because of their race and gender, some scholars recalled an earlier death. In 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American, was beaten to death by two white men at rising tensions over Japanese dominance in the auto market. The killers, who insisted the attack was not racially motivated, were sentenced to three years of probation.