The moderator asked our Zoom audience for questions and a small, raised hand icon appeared on our screens. “Why won’t politicians talk about the attacks on Asian Americans? They talk about Black Lives Matter, but shouldn’t we matter too?”

The question came from an Asian American man during a February 2021 panel on Asian American and Pacific Islander civic involvement and the political climate. He was echoing a comment I’d heard from others in the community who felt that rising incidents of hate against Asian Americans were going underreported and unaddressed.

His framing of the problem revealed an all-too-familiar tendency to pit one group against the other. Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action, siding with Asian students who argued the practice was disadvantaging them in favor of Black and Latinx students, is one of many examples.

My answer to the audience member was that it shouldn’t be an either-or proposition. Solidarity is necessary. The United States managed to perpetrate inequality and injustice on multiple groups at the same time so government leaders should be perfectly capable of addressing those wrongs simultaneously too.

A month later, anti-Asian hate drew more attention when a gunman targeted and killed eight people, most of them Asian women, in Atlanta. Suddenly, the country’s top leaders were decrying the growing racism that plagued Asian American communities since the coronavirus pandemic started in 2020.

Following the shooting, President Joe Biden created the Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders to consider how citizens can collaborate across sectors to advance equity and justice for the AANHPI community.

The committee will meet in person on Thursday and Friday in Honolulu for the first time to receive public input from Hawaii residents. In advance of the meeting, I have three suggestions to offer.

Increase Representation

First, combating hate and advancing equity starts with representation.

In April 2019, Biden began his bid for the Democratic nomination with the claim that we were in a “battle for the soul of America.” He asked us to “remember who we are” and presented his “vision for America” along with photos of Black and white Americans standing side by side. It left me with the distinct impression that faces like mine would remain invisible in Joe Biden’s America.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth highlighted a similar problem in 2021 when she vowed to hold any Biden nominee who lacked “diversity” in protest over a lack of AAPI appointees. She made the pledge after raising the issue of representation with the White House and receiving a reference to Kamala Harris’ heritage in response.

Speaking to the media, Duckworth explained, “To be told that you have Kamala Harris, we are proud of her, you don’t need anybody else is insulting.” The senator withdrew her pledge once the Biden administration assured her that it would elevate more AAPI leaders to top positions.

Historical Injustices

Second, the administration can work to educate Americans about historical injustices toward Asian Americans. 

In 1896, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan disagreed with the court majority’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision that upheld the practice of requiring separate train cars for Black and white passengers.

“The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law,” he wrote. Harlan took a progressive view on racial equality.

But he didn’t extend that to Chinese people. In the same dissent, he wrote, “There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race.” This perspective, which presents Asian immigrants as outsiders who cannot fit within existing American constructs or its racial dichotomy, has fueled anti-Asian hate throughout U.S. history. 

Harlan was referencing but not condemning the Chinese Exclusion Act that banned Chinese immigration from 1882 to 1943. The policy was enacted as Chinese laborers were scapegoated for the country’s low wages. Meanwhile, many Japanese immigrants were allowed into the United States and faced similar racist beliefs, which U.S. leaders would also use to rationalize the mass incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

In the 1980s, Japanese and Vietnamese Americans were accused of stealing “American” jobs and experienced violence as a result. Since the 1900s, Asian Americans have also faced blame for various diseases as well as terrorism and espionage. These injustices, along with those perpetrated against Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, should be a standard part of our education system.

Take A Stand

Third, national leaders must take a strong, repetitive public stance against hate crimes and injustices as well as fund state and local efforts to address discrimination. 

Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition dedicated to ending racism and discrimination, has recorded over 11,000 acts of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the start of the pandemic. Yet they estimate half of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders do not report acts of discrimination because they don’t believe doing so will matter. If top elected officials continue to speak out against anti-Asian hate, victims of violence and hate are more likely to feel they’ll be taken seriously if they come forward.

The federal government can also help by funding state and local government efforts to combat discrimination in partnership with community organizations that have already gained the trust of those who may experience acts of hate.

One example is Los Angeles County’s LA vs Hate, which allows residents to report acts of hate to a live person on a multilingual hotline and be connected to a care coordinator and local services. Programs like these help victims find the assistance they need and provide advocates with a clearer view of the problem’s scope.

Really, these three suggestions come from the same basic idea. National leaders must pay more attention to what’s happening in AANHPI communities and invest in solutions that foster racial justice.