AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community

The emergence of COVID-19 has been accompanied by a rise of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries. Based on a thematic analysis of anti-Asian hate case descriptions reported between March 19, 2020 and March 26, 2020 to the Stop AAPI Hate database, this article explores how COVID-19 and Asians are racialized in the present-day context. Findings indicate that the racialization of COVID-19 is deeply informed by long-standing racial perceptions of Asians as unclean, heathen, and immoral. These perceptions are intimately related to current geopolitical tensions and are negotiated in assimilationist claims to worthiness by Asians in response to discrimination.