Poll finds quarter of non-Asian Americans consider Chinese-Americans a possible threat

The Star

01-05-2025

One in four non-Asian Americans regard Chinese-Americans as a potential threat, especially related to national security, while four in 10 fear that Asian-Americans have greater allegiance to their countries of origin than to the United States, according to a poll released on Thursday.
The results from an Asian American Foundation survey come as US-China relations plummet and add to concerns in the diverse community about the ability to assimilate at a time of growing social tension.
'The poll underscores a troubling and ongoing disconnect between how Asian-Americans are perceived and how we actually experience life,' said Norman Chen, the foundation's chief executive, citing a rising societal belief in the stereotype of the 'perpetual foreigner'.
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'That has real consequences for our safety, sense of belonging and pathways to prosperity in this country,' Chen added.
The foundation has conducted the 'Socially Tracking of Asian Americans in the United States' (Staatus) survey since 2021 in a bid to monitor American perceptions, blunt discrimination and expand outreach.
The 4,909 survey respondents included 1,373 Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders and the rest non-Asians from a range of ethnic, racial, educational and income backgrounds. Where relevant, respondents were not asked to weigh in on their own group.
Among the survey's findings, some 63 per cent of Asian-Americans reported feeling unsafe in day-to-day situations and fearful they would be victims of discrimination through at least the end of this decade, twice the level for whites.
The polling comes amid growing xenophobia and intolerance in American society as US President Donald Trump's administration and its supporters upend tradition and set new standards for national loyalty, migration, racial dynamics, education and citizenship – including rights enshrined in the constitution for those born in the US.
'The increased positioning of China as an enemy in political discourse clouds perceptions of all Chinese Americans,' the survey's authors wrote. 'This mistrust can lead to hate and violence.'
The percentage of non-Asian respondents who believed that Asian-Americans are more loyal to their countries of origin than the US has doubled since 2021 – driven by a range of stated concerns over national security, different cultures and values, their impact on the job market, public health worries and their admission to elite universities.
'It's always easier to blame the 'other' when we don't know about it,' said Ophelia Chong, Los Angeles-based co-founder of Asian Americans for Cannabis Education, an advocacy group. 'Unfortunately, the present administration is not helping that. It's deflection, creating a fear of others.'
There were some signs of progress. A majority of non-Asian Americans, for example, expressed support for learning more about Asian history, racism and discrimination in school. And 90 per cent signalled interest in spending more time in Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves.
But those views did not necessarily align with perceptions the community held, the survey found.
More than six in 10 Asian-Americans reported feeling unsafe in some part of their daily lives over the past year, including half who said they had been insulted; more than a third who reported being harassed or threatened; and one in seven who told of physical attacks. Most saw little prospect of their situations improving any time soon.
'There's a perception that everything's fine,' said Sruthi Chandrasekaran, who helped lead the study. 'This obviously shows us that there's so much more that needs to be done.'
The community also appears to have a branding problem as 'the model minority'. Non-Asian largely describe Asian-Americans as 'smart', 'hard-working' and 'good at maths', stereotypes that discount the group's enormous diversity; that have been used as a divisive cudgel against other minorities; and that create unrealistic expectations, even mental health problems, in individuals.
The flip side of this is the stereotype that Asians are less likely to be leaders in US society and the workplace compared to whites – a situation that Asian-Americans refer to as the 'bamboo ceiling' – in sync with perceptions that Asian-Americans are highly competent but insular and not always likeable or socially adept.
'This combination of perceptions creates a complex mix of admiration, resentment and envy,' the survey's authors said.
Another long-standing Asian-American concern has been their treatment as a 'perpetual foreigner' in American society, even if their families have lived in the US for generations, and a racist 'yellow peril' trope that those originating in East Asia represent a threat to Western civilisation.
The survey also found that just 44 per cent of non-Asian Americans thought the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was wrong.
'Both the yellow peril and model minorities stereotypes have been used to cast suspicion on the loyalty of Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans during times of international tensions with Asian countries,' the report said. 'This has led to discrimination, hate and violence during World War II, the Vietnam war, after 9/11 and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic.'
To the extent views of ethnic and racial communities are shaped by prominent individuals and media, the survey found that Asian-Americans left a pretty faint footprint. One in four non-Asian Americans said they had no personal relationship with an Asian-American, while four in 10 could not name a famous one
Among those who could, martial artist film stars Jackie Chan – who is not American – and Bruce Lee, who died a half-century ago, led, followed by the 2024 presidential candidate, former US vice-president Kamala Harris, at just 11, 6 and 4 per cent respectively.
Similarly, a like amount were unable to name a movie with an Asian-American character. Among younger Americans, however, Japanese anime and South Korean K-dramas and K-pop were influential.
'You have films like Crazy Rich Asians , so they're starting to break through,' said David Lei, a San Francisco-based board member of the Chinese Historical Society of America who moved to the US from Taiwan when he was seven.
'If you look at the credits at the end of movies, the Asians have moved into Hollywood,' Lei added. 'It will naturally change in the next decade.'
Nor does the ill-fitting 'Asian-American' demographic, often shorthand for the Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community, accurately reflect the communities' expansive diversity, the survey found.
Representing at least 20 different countries from Japan to Cambodia, the demographic accounts for more than 24 million people, some 7 per cent of the US population.
And while Asian men are strongly represented in well-paid tech fields, the community also has the nation's widest income disparity, with below-average benchmarks for female Asian-Americans and huge numbers of low-wage workers in cooking, manicurist and healthcare jobs.
'The way the US-China relationship has been has really determined the American opinion of Chinese people,' said Casey Ly, Taiwanese-American co-founder of Bloom Brand, a Los Angeles-based vape company.
Ly added that African-Americans and other minorities faced at least as much discrimination. 'The vast majority of non-Asians don't really have a lot of contact with Chinese people – or Chinese culture.'
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