"One in four Americans has 'strong negative attitudes' toward Chinese Americans, would feel uncomfortable voting for an Asian American for president of the United States, and would disapprove of a family member marrying someone of Asian descent", according to a new national survey reported by Matthew Yi and Ryan Kim in the April 27 San Francisco Chronicle.
The landmark survey found that most respondents held "strongly negative" (25%) or "somewhat negative" (43%) attitudes toward Chinese-Americans.
The survey was conducted in early March before the US spy plane violated Chinese territory that led to sharp tensions between Beijing and Washington and a stepped up campaign of China bashing in the US media. The Committee of 100, a Chinese-American leadership organisation, sponsored the poll. It was conducted in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League and the Marttila Communication Group which chiefly studies Americans' attitudes toward Chinese Americans and Asian Americans.
When respondents were asked if Chinese Americans have too much influence in the high technology sector, 34% of those polls said it was "probably true". And asked whether Chinese Americans are taking too many jobs from "Americans", some 24% said it was "probably true". The fact that Chinese Americans are Americans seemed irrelevant.
Overall, 43% of those polled held "somewhat negative" attitudes towards Asian Americans; only 32% had a positive view.
Henry Tang, chief executive officer of the Committee of 100, noted that "The numbers are probably higher now than when the survey was done", since it occurred before the spy plane incident that remains unresolved and the decision by the Bush government to sell more weapons to Taiwan.
In recent years, leading Congress members from both the Democratic and Republican parties have used the issue of "human rights" to justify their anti-Communist and China-bashing efforts. The big-business media chimes in daily about the possible threat of China attacking Taiwan and the need for the US to protect its interests in the Pacific from the Chinese threat. Cold War rhetoric is especially popular with the new Bush administration.
The "red scare" demagogy began during the Clinton administration when the case of Wen-Ho Lee, the Taiwanese nuclear scientist, was falsely charged with passing nuclear secrets to China. His case was front-page news for nearly a year. Racist anti-Chinese cartoons and jokes began circulating and continued during the spy plane's intrusion of Chinese territory.
The bigotry is seen most sharply in the polling results on racial intermarriage. While not surprising to me that some 34% of those polled would oppose their child marrying an African American (blacks still face the most virulent racism), some 24% said the same thing about Asian Americans.
Generally, the media portrays Asians as the "model minority" even though racist stereotypes are common.
The most revealing — and threatening — result concerns "loyalty" to the United States. The survey indicates that 32% of Americans feel that Chinese Americans would be more loyal to China than to the United States. And 17% wouldn't want an Asian American to move into their neighbourhood.
While not stated openly in the survey, those with anti-Asian sentiments are likely to be whites.
Asian Americans are well aware of what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. They were placed in concentration camps for simply being of Japanese ancestry. They were fired from their jobs, their property was seized or bought for less than value, and their basic democratic rights denied. It took more than 40 years before the government made an apology.
Harassment and violence against Asian Americans is on the rise. While bigotry was increasing even before the spy plane incident, it is increasing. There is a growing concern in the Chinese American community that it will be a target for new discrimination as white Americans in particular feel more insecure with a stagnating economy.
At the height of the spy plane incident when the 24 US military personnel were detained in China, some consumers refused to buy products made in China and urged local stores to stop selling them.
Ted Wang, policy director for Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco, said: "There is a perception that we are still not American, that we're the perpetual foreigner. That plays into the distrust of Asian Americans in the context of government and private corporations."
Another prominent Asian American in the Bay Area added: "Textbooks don't have enough presentation of Asian and Asian American history. I'm always baffled that in 2001 Asian languages are not offered in more secondary schools."
The spy plane incident brought home to all Asian Americans that you couldn't hide from your heritage. As my Chinese co-worker at United Airlines always reminds his kids, "You're Chinese first and always. That's what other Americans see, not your birth certificate or citizenship papers."
BY MALIK MIAH