Contesting (In)Visibility: The Politics of the Stop Asian Hate Movement

• In Event: Asian Politics

Abstract

The Stop Asian Hate movement has generated a level of mobilization amongst Asian Americans unprecedented in recent memory. However, the movement has also been marked by deep contestation about what the nature of anti-Asian racism is and how to respond, especially around the effectiveness and desirability of carceral solutions such as increased policing and hate crimes legislation. This project asks: How are Asian Americans in the Stop Asian Hate movement conceptualizing of and addressing anti-Asian racism, vis-à-vis carceral politics? What does this suggest about how Asian Americans understand their place in the American racial hierarchy? While scholars have theorized the top-down processes through which Asian Americans are simultaneously marginalized and valorized, less is known about how Asian Americans on the ground understand their place in the racial hierarchy and how this shapes Asian American movement politics. Drawing on press releases, newspaper articles, and over forty in-depth interviews with Asian American community leaders in Philadelphia, Oakland, and San Francisco, I argue that the contestations within the Stop Asian Hate movement constitute different ways of situating Asian Americans in relation to other communities of color. I show how efforts to seek visibility for Asian American grievance can employ divisive and competitive logics between communities of color. At the same time, other efforts seek to redefine the struggle against anti-Asian violence as coalitional work with other communities of color. This project deepens our understanding of Asian American group consciousness, intergroup conflict and coalition, and racial power.

Author

• Sonya Chen, University of Pennsylvania