Anti-Asian Violence is an American Tradition

March 17, 2021

This illustration shows an anti-Chinese labor meeting on March 20, 1880 outside of San Francisco City Hall. (Photo via Illustrated Newspaper)An interview with Lok Siu, a faculty affiliate of ISSI's Asian American Research Center, in the Berkeley News investigates the long history of anti-Asian xenophobia in America in the wake of an unsurprising rise of anti-Asian attacks. Siu asserts, "'Anti-Asian racism in this country just gets a new face-lift from time to time," and explains how the deeply ingrained notion that Asian Americans are 'outsiders' and don't belong in the U.S. fuels anti-Asian sentiments and attacks in times of crisis.