To Flee or to Flock? Challenges to Asian American Collective Action and Identity

• In Event: Asian American Attitudes and Anti-Asian Sentiment in the Trump Era

Abstract

How has the identity of Asian Americans been affected by Trump’s and other’s characterization of Covid-19 as the “China Virus?” This paper examines how political leaders’ rhetoric toward other countries affects those countries’ diaspora identities and collective action. Drawing on sociological and political science research on discrimination and psychological studies of social identity theory, I contend that non-Chinese Americans who experience hate crimes because of their perceived Chinese identity are likely to either 1) embrace the Asian American collective identity or 2) disassociate with the Asian American identity and assert their national origin identity. I examine these hypotheses during the 2019 coronavirus. Employing a survey experiment, findings of a pilot study fielded in March 2020 shows that self-identified Chinese American respondents asserted their Chinese identity and showed more willingness to donate to a Chinese American organization. Moreover, I find that self-identified non-Chinese East Asians (e.g., Japanese and Koreans) were the most likely national origin groups to assert their national-origin identities. These preliminary results suggest that a defined target of discrimination may dissolve pan-ethnic collective action. I present results from a national study of Asian Americans to complement the preliminary findings. This research has implications for Asian American collective action and linked fate.

Author

• Chinbo Chong, Indiana University, Bloomington