Asian-Americans: Growing Racism : Major new report warns against the vile danger

Asian-Americans, the fastest growing U.S. minority group, face disturbingly widespread prejudice and hostile acts at school, on the job and in the legal system. Violence and other acts of bigotry against Asian-Americans are on the rise nationwide as U.S. economic problems are blamed, absurdly, on Japan.

The nature and danger of this growing problem is thoroughly developed in an important new report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Based on a two-year investigation, “Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian-Americans in the 1990s” notes that Asian-Americans have been targets of racial hatred and violence ever since their arrival in the 1880s and concludes that they continue to suffer widespread prejudice, discrimination, denials of equal opportunity and physical attacks.

With federal and local record-keeping on hate crimes against Asian-Americans spotty at best, the commission drew largely on anecdotal evidence. It cited a number of examples, including the infamous and now-emblematic 1982 murder of Vincent Chin. He was beaten to death in Detroit by two jobless white auto workers who mistook the Chinese-American for a Japanese and blamed him for the loss of U.S. auto jobs. Another involved the 1989 murders of five Indochinese children at a Stockton school by a crazed gunman motivated in part by racial hatred.

Quite appropriately, the commission concluded that the media should work harder to increase public awareness of hate crimes against Asian-Americans. We completely agree. The risk of not doing that can best be appreciated by recalling the anti-Japanese hysteria that swept the nation during World War II, when all Japanese-Americans were considered foreigners and every one a potential spy. Even luminaries like Earl Warren supported their internment; even this newspaper, like many others, played a most regrettable role in whipping up the hysteria. These days the gross injustice of that internment is evident to many--and this newspaper, among others, has endorsed the official U.S. apology.

The media still tends to reinforce stereotypes by portraying Asian-Americans as a “model minority,” when, in fact, they face many serious problems. The Asian-American story is not just one of whiz kids and driven entrepreneurs; and all Asians are not alike--the Japanese and the Koreans are as different as, say, the Germans and the French.

The civil-rights commission has brought a valuable perspective to this issue. California, where more Asian-Americans live than in any other state, should set an example by calling on presidential candidates and others to stop the inflammatory Japan-bashing and taking the lead in demanding better protection for Asian-Americans.