The American-Asian community is under attack. In recent weeks, Asian Americans have been robbed and beaten. Asian restaurants have been boycotted and demolished, with owners closing their stores early and employees afraid to walk home. Videos on social media have gone viral, showing seniors being pushed to the ground. Six Asian women were shot dead in a mass shooting in Atlanta on Tuesday when a gunman opened fire on three massage parlors and killed eight people.
What lies behind the rise of anti-Asian racism is no secret. The fuel was still there, in the patchwork of anti-Asian policies that are repeated throughout American history. But the xenophobic rhetoric of our former president – who has publicly and repeatedly blamed Asians for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – was the game. According to new data from the activist organization Stop AAPI Hate, nearly 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents occurred between March 2020 and March 2021, the vast majority (68%) against Asian women. The cruel reality is that many more go unreported.
Simply put, Asian Americans live in fear. As an American of Filipino descent, I fear for my safety, my parents safety – especially my father, who works in New York City, where three Asian men were beaten and stabbed in just one week. Most importantly, I fear that our pain will remain invisible, as it always has been, as long as Asian Americans have dared to exist in the United States, I fear that there is no justice for my community. , who is desperately looking for help, visibility and recognition.
Growing up, Asian Americans, many of us are taught to be silent or take no space, even when faced with hate crimes or discrimination. Celebrity hairstylist Anh Co Tran says that as a child, his family was forced to leave their home in Texas due to anti-Asian racism. Co Tran born in Vietnam, was brought to the United States by his parents, who were sponsored by a Christian church. Despite his family’s efforts to “assimilate into the white race,” Co Tran’s family suffered racist attacks. “There were two white people following him with a pipe. It was a hate crime. The church helped her family go to court, but no justice was served. “Our cousin lived in Southern California and they’re like, ‘Come here. There is more Asian community and the weather is better, ”says Co Tran. So we fled because the court did nothing. We just left.
“Asians are always a little neglected, because they are close to the privilege of whites”, explains Charlotte Cho, co-founder of Soko Glam. “So everyone is enjoying this experience. I have also seen my own parents face racism growing up as immigrants, not speaking English fluently, so they cannot defend themselves. I have seen them laugh at really blatant forms of racism. It touched me. I found myself in my childhood facing racism and laughing at it too.
These so-called assumptions and “jokes” about identity are harmful and, in some cases, contribute to internalized racism. U Beauty founder Tina Craig remembers loathing her own Asian identity as an 8-year-old immigrant. Craig says, “Discrimination from my own friends… I would laugh with them.” She tried to use makeup to “camouflage” her Asian character and distance herself from the Long Duk Dong characters she saw on television. “Why was I carrying this shame?” Craig wonders. “I had no one to look up to because there were not any actresses, movie stars in magazines speaking on our behalf. There was no performance. We were invisible, but at the same time distorted.
Overall, there has been a lack of public coverage or support for the Asian American community. But perhaps one of the most deafening silences has come from the beauty industry, which counts Asia as one of its main markets in the world. According to consumer database company Statista, Asia accounted for the largest share of the world’s cosmetics market in 2019 at 41%, with countries like China, Japan and South Korea leading the market. In the region.
The beauty industry has seized every opportunity to capitalize on Asian beauty practices. Browsing the current market, you will find sheet masks and essences (innovations from South Korea) or gua sha stones and jade scrolls (ancient exports of beauty tools from China) or water from rice (which dates back to the Heian period in Japan. Not only are the practices and ingredients stolen, but the US beauty service economy is built on the backs of the Asian workforce, with many women – mostly women, the majority of Vietnamese origin – working long hours for low pay in salons and spas, now they can’t even do this job without fearing for their lives.
So what happens when the community you benefit directly from needs your help? To answer this question, SHE turned to 24 powerful AAPI personalities from the beauty world for a panel discussion on anti-Asian racism in the beauty industry and the steps we can take to fix it. the evil.
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