Today marks the 2-month anniversary of the launch of the COVID-19 Racism Incident Report survey. Led by Erin Wen Ai Chew of the Asian Australian Alliance in collaboration with Osmond Chiu, the survey sought to create a database of racist incidents experienced by Asian Australians in the months following the pandemic’s spread. The goal was to provide a more accurate representation of the increasing number of racially-motivated abuse, including numerous instances of street harassment, that Asian Australians were being subjected to at a time where rhetoric around the virus was particularly divisive. In this piece, Erin shares with us some of the findings that have come out of the survey so far and reflects on what it says more generally about racism in Australia. 

In early February of this year, I was returning to Sydney from a solo trip around Malaysia. At that time, Wuhan, China was the epicentre of the Coronavirus outbreak, with the world’s eyes focusing on how China would deal with the virus. Unsure of what I would come home to, and not being able to access any news whilst in the air, I thought about how Australia would react to the virus outbreak, and whether I would be coming home to a hotbed of ignorance. 

As I stepped out into the luggage claim area of Sydney Airport, asides from my flight there were several other flights returning from the US, Europe and China. Most passengers were wearing facemasks. My first encounter with racism was when a Border Force officer walked up to me and asked me:

“Which city in China did you come from?”

I looked at him in disgust, and replied:

“Did you assume I was coming from China based on how I look? How about asking more politely which flight I was on instead of making racial assumptions”.

After checking my passport, without revisiting the racial profiling bungle he committed, he walked off as though nothing had happened. I thought to myself, at least I had the opportunity to school him. Though at that point, I did not realise that worse racism was to come. 

Walking out into the arrivals hall of Sydney Airport, I saw a Caucasian Australian lady staring at everyone who was walking out. Most likely, she was waiting for someone coming out from one of the flights. I ended up walking past her and, still with my facemask on, cleared my dry throat with a cough. She looked at me, prodded me and said:

“Can you take your Chinese virus and move away from me? I don’t want to catch your people’s dirty disease,” and with that she walked to the other side before I could respond. Being racially discriminated like that in my home country made me feel extremely stunned but also confused as, at this point, I was still unaware of what was happening in the news. As soon as I switched on my mobile phone and checked the news, I saw the headline splashed across the Australian tabloid media with a red face mask titled “Chinese virus pandemonium”.

Telling this story is not to win any sympathy points, but it highlights systematic issues of racism in Australia. Since COVID-19 was first spoken about in Australian news, the racism, the hate, and the xenophobia started. The tabloid media, our leaders and our history enabled and normalised this racism, and now that we are getting into June, the incidents of anti-Asian racism have not stopped. 

COVID-19 related racism is not the cause of racism in Australia, but it is a symptom of the bigger issue around racism in Australia as a whole. The anti-Chinese/Asian sentiment stems from the early days of the Gold Rush, Chinese Exclusion Acts and the Immigration Restriction Act (White Australia Policy). In more recent years, this “yellow peril” has re-emerged through public discussions around the engagement and growing influence of China. Acknowledging this was what inspired me and my survey co-collaborators (Osmond Chiu and the Asian Australian Alliance) to launch the “COVID-19 Coronavirus Racism Incident Report” survey on April 2nd. Today marks the two-month anniversary since the launch of the survey, which has collected close to four hundred COVID-19 related racism reports.

The STOP AAPI HATE reporting centre, which is tracking the number of COVID-19 racism related incidents in the USA against Asian Americans, has recorded around 1,710 reports in a six week period. Taking population proportions into consideration, this demonstrates that the COVID-19 Coronavirus Racism Incident Report has approximately 30% proportionately more reports of anti-Asian racism in Australia in comparison to the American counterparts.

At this two month mark, the following are some of the emerging trends coming out of the “Incident Report”:

• Approximately 65% of respondents identified as being female;

• COVID-19 related racism incidents reported was the highest in NSW (36%), with VIC coming in second (30%);

• The majority of COVID-19 related racism incidents occurred on a public street/sidewalk (37%), with incidents happening in a shopping centre/supermarket coming in second (23%) and public transport areas coming in third (15%);

• Online COVID-19 related racism was the highest on Facebook (44%);

• Over 60% of respondents stated that their experience of racism came in the form of racial slur/name calling, with 24% stating that the racism was “made as a joke” usually by someone/people they knew;

• Almost 90% of respondents stated that they did not report their experience of racism to the police;

Essentially, these results highlight the alarming rates of COVID-19 related racism, but it also tells us more about some of the underlying reasons for this racial abuse and can help us - the media, academics, law enforcement, regulatory bodies and the Government - create long-term plans to prevent these effects from happening again. This is not to say that the data collected in this survey will solve the problem of racism, but it is a start in proving and proclaiming that racism is an issue in Australia and it must be addressed. 

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Erin Chew is a social entrepreneur, freelance writer and social activist focusing on issues impacting on the Asian diaspora. Erin has worked within the trade union movement for over 10 years in the areas of organising and community engagements/building.  Erin founded the Asian Australian Alliance back in 2013 as a way to include the Asian Australian voice in the mainstream and create a platform for change. Currently, her organization is running an Australian wide COVID-19 Racism Incident survey, which has garnered over 380 responses thus far in Australia.