tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/asians-39761/articlesAsians – The Conversation2023-03-02T13:23:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961912023-03-02T13:23:11Z2023-03-02T13:23:11ZCOVID-19’s housing crisis hit many Asians in the US hardest – but only after government aid began flowing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512743/original/file-20230228-784-m5nxpk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=198%2C53%2C3036%2C2100&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pandemic put millions of people on the edge of eviction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RentReliefNewYork/d39802bf7d5e4a0c8aa067e473708ed2/photo?Query=eviction%20housing&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=888&currentItemNo=29">AP Photo/Mary Altaffer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>People of Asian descent living in the U.S. experienced an increase in housing vulnerability in 2021 – as measured by the share who said they had fallen behind on their rent or mortgage payments – even as the government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html">spent over US$5 trillion</a> trying to relieve the COVID-19 pandemic’s burden on Americans. Meanwhile, housing vulnerability among white people, Black people and Hispanic people all fell during this period. </p>
<p>These are the main findings of <a href="https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/15835/in-need-of-a-roof-pandemic-and-housing-vulnerability">our recent working paper</a> that examined housing vulnerability during the pandemic. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-021-00092-5">massive upheaval sparked</a> by the pandemic in early 2020 put millions out of work and made it harder for many people to afford basic necessities like rent amid government-imposed lockdowns. In December 2020, over 2 million homeowners were <a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_Housing_insecurity_and_the_COVID-19_pandemic.pdf">more than three months behind</a> on their mortgage payment, and 8 million renters were behind on their rent, according to a March 2021 Consumer Finance Bureau report.</p>
<p>We wanted to better understand what was driving this degree of housing vulnerability, how that changed during the pandemic and across ethnic groups, and how it differed between renters and homeowners. To find out, we examined data from the <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html">Census Household Pulse Survey</a>, which has sought to quickly measure the social and economic toll from the pandemic in frequent surveys, for three different periods: April/May 2020, April/May 2021 and April/May 2022. </p>
<p>We found that housing vulnerability was high for all groups in early 2020 as the first financial shock of the pandemic struck, though people of color and renters were especially hard hit.</p>
<p>Among homeowners, the overall share of people who said they were not caught up on their mortgage payments was elevated in 2020 but declined in 2021 as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html">government aid helped relieve</a> household hardships. An exception was for homeowners of Asian descent, who reported even higher levels of housing vulnerability in 2021 – and more than any other group. By 2022, housing vulnerability had come down for all groups. </p>
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<p>The picture was much worse for renters. About 25% of Black renters reported being behind on rent in 2020, compared with 18% for Hispanic respondents and 9.5% for Asians. While the figure fell slightly in 2021 for Black people and Hispanics, the share soared for Asians to 17.1%. The figures stayed elevated in the double-digits for all groups except for white people in early 2022. </p>
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<p>An additional econometric analysis we conducted, which adjusted the data for levels of education, income levels and other factors, confirmed our results.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Housing vulnerability is an important measure to look at because it signals someone may be at risk of losing their home, whether they’re an owner or a renter. In addition, research shows there’s a link between housing vulnerability and other negative health outcomes, such as <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/73/3/256">higher stress levels</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216764">mental distress</a>.</p>
<p>Our own research uncovered disparities in how different groups experienced this vulnerability during the pandemic, when the government was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html">spending trillions to support families and businesses</a>. It suggests some groups benefited more than others from these relief efforts. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Our study didn’t reveal why Asian housing vulnerability increased from 2020 to 2021 and why this group of people didn’t seem to benefit as much from the federal aid as other groups did. </p>
<p>An August 2020 <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-advancing-asian-american-recovery">McKinsey report</a> suggested aid to Asian small businesses would likely lag behind other groups due to language barriers or a lack of understanding of the system. The same thing might be true for aid to households as well.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>In our future research, we plan to investigate what factors contributed to the rise in housing vulnerability among Asians relative to other groups. We believe it’s important for policymakers to examine these issues in hopes of making future aid programs more equitable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While all groups experienced increased housing vulnerability after the pandemic hit, only people of Asian descent continued to see their situations worsen in 2021 as the US spent trillions trying to soften the impact.Kusum Mundra, Associate Professor of Economics, Rutgers University - NewarkRuth Uwaifo Oyelere, Associate Professor of Economics, Agnes Scott CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1785032022-05-24T12:28:00Z2022-05-24T12:28:00ZScientists at Work: How pharmacists and community health workers build trust with Cambodian genocide survivors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463796/original/file-20220517-13-z54dgh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C766&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Community health workers assist patients as they gather their medications and supplements to discuss them during remote visits with pharmacists.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Khmer Health Associates</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wartime trauma paired with starting over in a new country make getting health care particularly challenging for immigrant refugees. Talking to a doctor or getting prescriptions filled in an unfamiliar language is hard enough. But for refugees, the physical and psychological scars of escaping war or genocide can complicate their health needs and getting them met.</p>
<p><a href="https://pharmacy.uconn.edu/person/christina-polomoff/">I am a clinical pharmacist</a> trained in improving medication safety and effectiveness in the outpatient setting. Starting in 2019, I was with a team of pharmacists serving Cambodian American patients in Connecticut and Rhode Island. I spent 15 months there studying the role of pharmacists and <a href="https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/healthdisp/role-of-community-health-workers.htm">community health workers</a> in helping disadvantaged immigrants get medications they need and learn to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2021.10.031">take them consistently and safely</a>. </p>
<p>Many of them had fled the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1993.03510050047025">Khmer Rouge</a>, a brutal political party and military force operating under the regime of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/pol-pot">Pol Pot</a> in 1970s Cambodia. They had witnessed executions, survived starvation or suffered <a href="http://cambodialpj.org/article/justice-and-starvation-in-cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-famine/">famine-related diseases</a>. </p>
<p>As pharmacists, we learned that the best way to care for these patients was by listening to and learning from the community members they trusted. It’s a lesson for health care providers that could prove useful as the U.S. <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/refugees">welcomes new refugees</a> from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine. </p>
<h2>Unsafe medicine</h2>
<p>As a traumatized population, Cambodian refugees might be wary of strangers. They may avoid anyone thought to be a government or other official. Consequently, they often rely on their own beliefs and assumptions, even about health. </p>
<p>Our research team learned that some Cambodians expect to receive medications for every illness. It reassures these genocide survivors that something is being done about whatever’s wrong.</p>
<p>If a doctor doesn’t give them a prescription, they might seek out one who will prescribe medicine. Still, they may take the medicine for only as long as they’re feeling sick. If side effects occur, they may decide the dose is too large and reduce how much they take. And medications are often shared among friends and family. </p>
<p>Limited English proficiency can keep immigrants from seeking medical care. When they do, language barriers make it difficult for health care providers to understand a patient’s symptoms and to prescribe the right medication, especially since interpreters are not always available. So, in immigrant communities, translating often falls to family members, sometimes children.</p>
<p>The presence of family members, especially children, can influence what patients and pharmacists say, particularly with sensitive subjects like mental illness or reproductive health. And translating in a medical setting can be a tremendous burden on children. During our research, we learned about a 7-year-old daughter who had been the one to translate her mother’s cancer diagnosis. </p>
<h2>Established relationships</h2>
<p>Locally based community health workers have been addressing these problems. With language interpretation skills and health information, they help residents in their own communities manage their mental and physical health.</p>
<p>Our research team of four pharmacists worked with five community health workers from <a href="https://khmerhealthadvocates.org/">Khmer Health Advocates</a>, a West Hartford, Connecticut-based organization for Cambodian American survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide and their families. After four decades in the area, Khmer Health Advocates knew its community best. That’s why we followed the organization’s lead as it directed recruitment for our study.</p>
<p>The health workers introduced us and our research project at churches, temples and events like the Cambodian New Year celebration. They also went to health clinics Cambodians use and put up fliers at Cambodian businesses. </p>
<p>The health workers also reached out to residents individually, connecting with people on a personal level. As genocide survivors themselves with training in trauma-informed care, they met patients in safe, familiar locations like their homes. They ate together and discussed not just the study, but familiar concerns like the financial hardship of restarting life in a new country and having to accept low-paying service jobs. In all, the community health workers helped recruit 63 patients to work with the pharmacists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man and two women sit at a table where health information, checklists and other papers are spread out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462313/original/file-20220510-545-834gu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With training in trauma-informed care, the community health workers work directly with residents to help them improve their mental and physical health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Khmer Health Associates</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cross-cultural problem solving</h2>
<p>The health workers schooled us in Cambodian culture, which greatly values showing respect. The “sampeah” greeting, for example, consists of palms pressed together in a praying gesture while bowing the head. The higher the hands and lower the bow, the greater the degree of respect being shown.</p>
<p>We also learned idioms to help us understand the patients’ descriptions of their symptoms. For example, “spuck” is what they call neuropathy or nerve damage. It’s a common symptom among those who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1536504220920197">endured beatings</a> during the conflict. Another phrase is “kdov kbal,” meaning “hot head,” to describe a feeling of heat in the brain interfering with thinking. And “phleu” refers to losing the train of thought, like with cognitive impairment.</p>
<p>Community health workers also helped the patients trust us pharmacists to help them manage their medications.</p>
<p>When it was time to meet with pharmacists, the health workers had already interviewed the patients to document the medications, herbal products, traditional Khmer medicines and dietary supplements they were taking. The patient would gather them all in preparation to talk with the pharmacist as the health worker sat with them.</p>
<p>When I met with patients over video from my office, the health worker held each medication to the camera. Then I talked with the patient about doses, side effects and any questions they had. I explained ways to take medicine to avoid side effects, and I noted possible drug interactions for my recommendations to their doctors. Through all of this, the health worker translated from English to Cambodian, from medical jargon to culturally appropriate terminology and back again.</p>
<p>We helped the 63 patients resolve <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2021.10.031">more than 80%</a> of their medication-related issues, a good resolution rate for any community, English speaking or not. Patients also got better at remembering to take medications, taking the correct doses and in taking them more consistently. Our study found that community health workers and pharmacists working together were crucial to these patients getting better at managing their medicines. </p>
<p>I saw up close how a cross-cultural team can effectively resolve medication-related problems in an immigrant community. With war and genocidal conflicts driving international migration, this model is applicable now when the health of the most vulnerable is increasingly at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The funding for this work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (Grant DK103663).</span></em></p>Studying medication use in a traumatized population of immigrants required pharmacists to listen to and learn from trusted community health workers.Christina Polomoff, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pharmacy Practice, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1652862021-08-29T17:57:29Z2021-08-29T17:57:29Z‘My home country pushed me away’: how returning expats became South Korea’s pandemic scapegoats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414652/original/file-20210804-15-8a1m0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=675%2C954%2C5331%2C3053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/south-korea-december-5-2019-view-1583099902">LegoCamera/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Yuna (not her real name), a South Korean living in France, returned to Korea for a visit in the early July 2021, she and her two children had to quarantine for two weeks in a small studio. She was fully vaccinated, but <a href="https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/sg-en/brd/m_2444/view.do?seq=761451">exemptions</a> that allow people to quarantine outside official facilities only apply to people visiting direct family members, and she did not have any.</p>
<p>Yuna developed a fever in quarantine and was taken to hospital in a special vehicle reserved for returnees – people in quarantine cannot take public transport. At the hospital, she was given her prescription at the entrance and asked to leave.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t help but cry at night,” she said in a recent interview. “It was like my home country pushed me away.”</p>
<p>Another South Korean living France, who is fully vaccinated and had been through the two-week quarantine, said she was asked to leave a restaurant by a waiter on a recent visit. She was told her presence would make other diners uncomfortable. Why? She had written her address in France on the entry list, revealing that she was visiting from abroad.</p>
<p>South Korea has been widely praised for its handling of the pandemic, though it is now experiencing a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/29/once-a-covid-success-story-south-korea-sweats-through-summer-of-delta-surge">surge in infections</a> due to the Delta variant. But for Koreans living overseas, the country’s response to coronavirus has been hard to manage, and their presence has been frequently politicised.</p>
<h2>Border politics</h2>
<p>In January 2020, when coronavirus was sweeping through the Chinese province of Wuhan, the public largely disagreed with the government’s initial decision <a href="https://www.sisain.co.kr/news/articleView.html">not to close borders with China</a>. The controversy became more acute cases rose and other countries including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea-idUSKBN20T03O">Japan</a> and <a href="https://kr.usembassy.gov/031820-suspension-of-routine-visa-services/">the US</a> suspended visas for South Koreans.</p>
<p>Even back then, returning migrants were a concern, especially students studying overseas. As the virus surged in the US and Europe, many <a href="https://www.donga.com/news/Politics/article/all/20200324/100316453/1">began to return to Korea</a>, representing a significant share of new infections in the country: <a href="https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/03/30/2020033000158.html">41 out of 105 on March 29, 2020</a>. Public opinion <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200329000200">became hostile</a>, even more so as returning students were considered largely to be children of the wealthy.</p>
<p>In late March 2020, the government introduced a strict procedure guiding arrivals, who were taken from the airport to a testing centre, then to registered isolation accommodation without contacting any other people. The government considered imposing electronic wristbands on <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2020/04/119_287604.html">people coming from abroad</a>. During this time, the media, frequently accused returnees of propagating the virus and undermining public order.</p>
<p>One migrant who returned to Korea in May 2020 recalls of this period: “There was panic everywhere. My friends and even family members avoided me because I had returned from abroad.”</p>
<h2>Going all-in on the K-treatment</h2>
<p>In the summer of 2020, focus moved away from returnees as it had become clear that Covid-19 was omnipresent and that South Korea had successfully addressed the situation. In contrast to other countries, the number of daily new cases stayed mostly below 100, without any need for lockdown.</p>
<p>Supplies of masks, a source of panic early in the pandemic, improved such that everyone could now wear their own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opinion/covid-face-mask-shortage.html">KF94 mask</a>, the equivalent of the American N95. Yet borders were still in play. Sending masks to people abroad was first strictly prohibited, then <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2020/06/24/business/economy/facial-masks-covid19-maskexport/20200624180500314.html">allowed between direct family members as supply improved</a>.</p>
<p>President Moon Jae-In’s government and the media branded this improvement as <a href="https://www.mfds.go.kr/eng/brd/m_64/view.do?seq=23&srchFr&srchTo&srchWord&srchTp&itm_seq_1=0&itm_seq_2=0&multi_itm_seq=0&company_cd&company_nm&page=1">“the K-quarantine model”</a>, a phrase intended to resonate with the global success of K-pop and K-drama, as the Western media praised the country’s coronavirus response.</p>
<p>The government and the media also urged the nation to devote its resources to develop the “K-treatment” and national vaccines for Covid-19. These enthusiasts did not know that foreign vaccines were on the horizon, whereas the “K-treatment” was not.</p>
<p>The Korean triumph was called into question as early as November 2020 as foreign vaccines began to succeed in clinical trials, with some becoming available from early 2021. The administration had <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/why-south-korea-still-hasnt-vaccinated-anyone/">failed to make contracts</a> with the pharmaceutical firms except for AstraZeneca, of which a Korean firm was part of the production line.</p>
<p>The global controversy over the AstraZeneca vaccine’s safety in early 2021 intensified the criticism and confusion in South Korea. In contrast to other countries, the government immediately authorised the AstraZeneca vaccine for people older than 60, but many people hesitated and chose to wait for Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, which were often perceived to be safer because they have not <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-calculating-the-risk-of-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-is-so-difficult-a-doctor-explains-159293">raised the same concerns over blood clots</a>. Yet even with this widespread reluctance, supply of vaccines did not meet demand.</p>
<p>As overseas migrants received these vaccines abroad while the campaign in South Korea stagnated, criticisms mounted once more. The government decided <a href="https://ecck.or.kr/vaccination-update-in-korea-as-of-may-31-2021/">not to recognise vaccination certificates issued abroad</a>, because <a href="https://biz.chosun.com/it-science/bio-science/2021/05/28/I3JZSIP6Y5GSXEUSOEHVCHAXM4/">they were not seen as reliable</a>. So people vaccinated in South Korea were free to travel internationally and return to Korea with a negative PCR test result, but those who had been vaccinated overseas still had to go through quarantine, even if they’d received the more “desirable” vaccines.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="This chart shows the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases per day in South Korea. This is shown as the seven-day rolling average" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415226/original/file-20210809-15-1mv87rz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea#what-share-of-the-population-has-received-at-least-one-dose-of-the-covid-19-vaccine">OurWorldinData</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Recently, as the delta variant has surged, <a href="https://www.dongascience.com/news.php?idx=47684">the demand for further control of returnees has increased</a>. The message is once again that the South Koreans who have lived overseas will disturb public order by <a href="https://www.dongascience.com/news.php?idx=47729">acting recklessly</a>.</p>
<p>On one hand, the government again reinforced constraints, such as limiting private gatherings or restricting restaurants’ business hours. On the other hand, to encourage the vaccination, it eased the restrictions for wholly vaccinated people. This incentive still concerns only people <a href="https://www.mk.co.kr/news/business/view/2021/08/806703/">vaccinated in the country</a>.</p>
<p>Debate over the rights of South Koreans who have been living abroad has been a significant feature of domestic politics throughout the pandemic. The result of this politicisation of overseas migrants has brought into question one of the citizenship rights South Koreans have long taken for granted – the right to return “home”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>South Koreans living away from home have been frequent targets for suspicion and ire during the pandemic. Some even report being shunned by their families.Jongheon Kim, Doctorant, Université de LilleIvan Sainsaulieu, Professeur des université - Sociologue, Université de LilleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1576672021-03-28T13:39:17Z2021-03-28T13:39:17ZThe model minority myth hides the racist and sexist violence experienced by Asian women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391805/original/file-20210325-15-1fesls5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C26%2C4446%2C2964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters display placards during a rally held to support Stop Asian Hate, March 21, 2021, in Newton, Mass. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP/Steven Senne)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Six women of Asian descent were among eight people <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth">tragically killed in a targeted shooting</a> on March 16 in Atlanta. The initial <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/978680316/atlanta-spa-shootings-expose-frustration-and-debate-over-hate-crime-label">denial by the Atlanta police that this was a hate crime</a>, along with some news reports highlighting the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/18/opinion/massacre-targeting-asians-georgia-wasnt-bad-day-it-was-hate-crime/">offender’s version of the incident</a>, evoked a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-92-all-in-a-day/clip/15831934-8-killed-atlanta-spa-shootings-sparking">swift reaction by communities all over North America</a>. Many spoke of the invisibility of anti-Asian racism.</p>
<p>One of the reasons for the invisibility of anti-Asian racism is inextricably connected to the model minority myth. The model minority myth focuses on prevailing stereotypes of Asians as hard-working, independent, intelligent and economically prosperous. </p>
<p>But the stereotypes — while seemingly positive — hide many issues, including anti-Asian racism, poverty, labour abuse and psychological needs. It disappears the realities of working-class Asian women’s lives.</p>
<p>The myth has also sometimes <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/524571669/model-minority-myth-again-used-as-a-racial-wedge-between-asians-and-blacks">disrupted inter-racial solidarity</a> and has been used against Indigenous, Black <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691168029/the-color-of-success">and other racialized groups</a>. </p>
<h2>The reality of working-class Asians</h2>
<p>The Asian <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691168029/the-color-of-success">model minority myth was popularized by sociologist William Pettersen</a> through a 1966 <em>New York Times</em> article. For the past several decades, the Asian model minority myth has been prevalent in the general public as a counter-argument for anti-Asian racism. </p>
<p>The myth is that Asians are rule-abiding and thus do not have needs that warrant societal and government policy concerns. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="women hold placards at a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391808/original/file-20210325-21-sxsavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters Dana Liu, centre front, and Kexin Huang, right, display placards during a rally held to support Stop Asian Hate, March 21, 2021, in Newton, Mass.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Steven Senne)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some even talk about reverse discrimination and highlight a few successful stories of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians. Leaders have used examples of Asian Canadian and Asian American success <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691168029/the-color-of-success">to deny deeply rooted systemic racism</a> and instead point to that success as evidence of a “colour-blind” society.</p>
<p>However, this celebratory tone systemically excludes the reality of working-class Asian Canadians and Asian Americans. It also excludes a specific form of <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-119">anti-Asian racism against Asian women that is intertwined with gender and sexuality</a>.</p>
<h2>Fear of failure</h2>
<p>The Asian model minority myth produces Asian subjects who are encouraged to be the model, in other words, the non-trouble-making minority. The narrative creates this idea of the essentialist “other” — those who are part of the “model” group. It also discourages that group’s potential collective actions to overcome challenges.</p>
<p>Numerous studies have shown that the model minority myth itself causes a <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/47fea8mk9780252040887.html">fear of failing to conform to the positive stereotype among Asians</a>.</p>
<p>The sentiment that we ought to “take care of the problem ourselves, without troubling others” (as someone said in a research interview) <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-437-1">hides socio-economic, political, educational and psychological needs of Asian Canadians from public view</a>. </p>
<h2>High poverty rates</h2>
<p>Contrary to common notions about Asian Canadians’ economic success, an <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2020001/article/00042-eng.htm">analysis of Canada’s 2016 census data</a> shows that “among Korean, Arab and West Asian Canadians, the poverty rate ranged from 27 per cent to 32 per cent.” Among Chinese and also Black Canadians, the poverty rate reached 20 per cent. Filipinos were the only visible minority group that had a lower poverty rate (7.2 per cent) than the white population (12.2 per cent). </p>
<p>While Asian Canadians are highly represented in skilled occupations, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019006-eng.htm">particularly among those born in Canada</a>, the high poverty rates of Asian Canadians suggest that they are also over-represented in low-paying occupations, particularly among immigrants. </p>
<p>However, these statistics do not clearly show the feminized poverty, violence and exploitation that many Asian women face due to their precarious immigration status, gender stereotyping and fetishization of Asian women’s bodies. </p>
<p>In fact, anti-Asian racism is <a href="https://www.vox.com/22338807/asian-fetish-racism-atlanta-shooting">intertwined with the sexualization of Asian women</a>, a fetishization of Asian women’s bodies and the stigmatization of sex work. </p>
<h2>Colonial ideas of ‘orientalism’</h2>
<p>The sexualization of Asian women stems from a history of European colonization of the Asia Pacific as well as colonial ideas of orientalism that constructed Asian women as “exotic” sexual objects. In North America, settler colonialism constructed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690701439751">Asian immigrants as threats to the biological reproduction of the white nation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a black and white image of men working on the railway" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391977/original/file-20210326-21-zhvxvq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chinese men came to work on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway as shown here in 1881.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brown/Library and Archives Canada, C-006686B)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One example of this is the <a href="https://humanrights.ca/story/the-chinese-head-tax-and-the-chinese-exclusion-act">Chinese Head Tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada</a> during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Surrounding the immigration ban, Chinese women’s sexuality was constructed as immoral compared to white women. Their exclusion to legitimate immigration was justified by constructing Chinese women as potential “sex workers.” </p>
<h2>Femininized workforce</h2>
<p>Asian women migrants are mainly employed in a feminized workforce, including domestic and care work, service industry and the sex industry. These feminized low-paying workforces have traditionally been considered white women’s work but are now mostly taken up by racialized women. In this work, Asian women workers are stereotyped as <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=4972">“ideal” docile labour</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman kneels down to place flowers at a memorial. Behind her, a protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391970/original/file-20210326-17-1hh51iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People place flowers during a vigil in Montréal to highlight anti-Asian racism and to remember the victims who were murdered in Atlanta, on March 21, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Asian women workers who have precarious migration status are particularly vulnerable to labour exploitation, abuses and police violence from potential deportation threats. However, these women’s stories remain silenced in the celebrated myth of Asian success. </p>
<p>The model minority myth repeats symbolic and racist traps. To move beyond this, alternative narratives are needed to build solidarity both within Asian groups and with other racialized people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The invisibility of anti-Asian racism is inextricably connected to the model minority myth, which serves to disguise the violence experienced by Asian American and Asian Canadian women.Jiyoung Lee-An, Instructor, School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, Carleton UniversityXiaobei Chen, Professor and Associate Chair Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321372020-07-27T20:03:22Z2020-07-27T20:03:22ZRacist stereotyping of Asians as good at math masks inequities and harms students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348406/original/file-20200720-63094-1gyfffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=387%2C27%2C3170%2C3053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The myth of Asians being good at math both encourages a “blame-the-victim” approach to math failure and imposes significant psycho-social pressure on high-achieving students. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chuttersnap/Unsplash) </span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some people stereotype Asian students as the “model minority” in math achievement: they <a href="https://theconversation.com/asians-are-good-at-math-why-dressing-up-racism-as-a-compliment-just-doesnt-add-up-128731">generalize attributes of a so-called “minority” (racialized) community in a way that just perpetuates racism disguised as a compliment</a>. </p>
<p>It is clear, however, that not all students identified as Asian are good at math. The word <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315658438/chapters/10.4324/9781315658438-15">“Asian” is a category used to represent human beings who are, in fact, diverse and their differences are lost by their inclusion in the term</a>. “Asian” includes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320500490630">50 or so ethnic groups</a> in a huge diversity of linguistic, socio-economic, political and cultural settings. Making judgments based on categories often leads to faulty or erroneous implications. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Model_Minority_Myth_Revisited.html?id=G2jHy9gv3M0C&redir_esc=y">Both scholars</a> and cultural commentators have highlighted the problem that the “model minority” label is sometimes used politically to divide those who are held up as so-called “model” groups and those who are not. Reporter Kat Chow notes that some white people have talked about <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/524571669/model-minority-myth-again-used-as-a-racial-wedge-between-asians-and-blacks">Asians in North America in ways that positions Asians’ so-called “success” as a “racial wedge</a>” that separates Asians from Black people or other racialized groups. Such framing distracts from necessary <a href="https://cjc-rcc.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ajer/article/view/55221">conversations about racism and structural inequalities</a>. </p>
<p>We are involved in a study launched in 2018, “Behind the Model Minority Mask,” that seeks <a href="https://languagesciences.ubc.ca/news-events/announcement-research-news-story/jun-12-2019-looking-behind-model-minority-mask-help">to understand divergent literacy and academic trajectories of Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking children in Canada</a>. We wanted to explore how early factors such as home and classroom environments and larger cultural myths surrounding “Asian academic achievement” may be affecting children’s academic results.</p>
<p>Our research has found that holding up a “model minority” stereotype leads to destructive emotional stress for students. The “model minority” myth both encourages blaming students for failure, obscures the socio-economic factors that influence student academic achievement and also imposes significant psychosocial pressure on high-achieving students. </p>
<h2>Breaking down the meaning of ‘ESL’</h2>
<p>Our research into Asian students in Vancouver schools also revealed that there are also problems with the generalized use of terms such as “English as a Second Language” (ESL) learners and “English Language Learners” (ELL).</p>
<p>For example, we learned through a series of studies of about <a href="https://www.routledge.com/English-Only-Instruction-and-Immigrant-Students-in-Secondary-Schools-A/Gunderson/p/book/9780805825145">25,000 immigrant students</a> aged six to 19 who were categorized as “ESL” that a small number were in fact non-ESL. They were raised in families where they learned another language in addition to English from birth.</p>
<p>Of the students who did learn English after another language, there was a wide range of English-language skills, from those who spoke only a little bit of English to those who were fluently bilingual. The group included immigrants and refugees and those who were from low to high socio-economic backgrounds, and included speakers of 150 first languages and dialects. </p>
<p>The “ESL” or “ELL” labels, like the “Asian” label, however, are sometimes also used in ways that can misrepresent achievement, influence or realities of individuals. Some right-wing media commentators use <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/life/trouble+with+schools/10203596/story.html">the “ESL” label, for example, to argue that ESL students are responsible for a “strain on the system,” and “lowering” education</a>. </p>
<p>Such reprehensible commentary is facilitated by studies or news reports that <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=AuuXY3tbLMoC&dq=August+Shanahan+%22Report+of+the+National+Literacy+Panel%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzgZyC8NnqAhUtJTQIHaHJBrQQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg">rely on generalized categories</a> and pay <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-teaching/article/emergent-bilingual-students-in-secondary-school-along-the-academic-language-and-literacy-continuum/A1550CE4E703D1B7FA693EF2C61DD9B7">insufficient attention to variables</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of teens with school books and bags walk outside" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348413/original/file-20200720-63094-w2ycob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Holding up a ‘model minority’ stereotype leads to destructive emotional stress for students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Roots of achievement patterns</h2>
<p>In part of our study, Lee Gunderson recorded science, math, English and social studies academic achievement of 5,000 randomly selected students from grades 8 to 12 in 18 Vancouver secondary schools including Asian students. ESL students scored significantly higher than native English speakers in all academic areas except English and social studies in Grade 12. Mandarin speakers’ academic achievement was also significantly higher than that of Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and other language groups. </p>
<p>While there were high achievers among this diverse group of Asians, many Asian students (even among the Chinese subgroups) also reported struggling academically and socio-emotionally in school. </p>
<p>Socio-economic status <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/English_Only_Instruction_And_Immigrant_S.html?id=dm4UkTp8BNcC&redir_esc=y">was also found to be an important variable: Mandarin-speaking immigrants were from more affluent families than the other ethno-linguistic groups</a>. Mandarin-speaking families employed more tutors to bolster their children’s academic work than other groups. Indeed, among this group, some Mandarin-speaking university students worked as academic tutors. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother is helping her teenage son do homework" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348409/original/file-20200720-18366-1cr72k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mandarin-speaking families were more affluent and employed more tutors to bolster academic achievement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sample of native-English speaking students included a wide-range of families from a range of socio-economic backgrounds. By contrast, the Mandarin sample, as a result of immigration patterns, included more high economic status families than other groups. </p>
<p>When high economic status native English speakers were selected they scored significantly higher in all academic areas than Mandarin speakers at all grades. Socio-economic status is related to school success. </p>
<h2>Early beginnings</h2>
<p>With this same set of students, initial assessment results in the early grades revealed no significant differences in achievement between young Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. However, by Grade 12 there were differences with Mandarin speakers having significantly <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286868016_High_School_May_Not_Be_Enough_An_Investigation_of_Asian_Students'_Eligibility_for_Post-secondary_Education">higher</a> grades. </p>
<p>Mandarin-speaking girls were four times more like to be eligible for university than <a href="https://teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/view/1114">Cantonese-speaking boys</a>. About two-thirds of the Cantonese boys did not have grades sufficient for admission to university. Cantonese boys were at-risk students. The other Asian groups scored lower than Mandarin speakers in all academic areas.</p>
<h2>Understanding differences</h2>
<p>The two largest groups of Asian immigrants, the Cantonese and Mandarin speakers, were from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The language of instruction in their communities was not English, so we expected these children’s English skills would be nascent when they immigrated to Canada.</p>
<p>As researchers, we did not expect that these students’ achievement would differ at the end of their public school careers. We also didn’t expect to see gender differences in academic achievement when this difference wasn’t present when these children first entered Canada. Nor did we expect to see differences among the Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. </p>
<p>As our research continues, we predict the findings will provide critical knowledge that educators need to improve the learning of Cantonese-speaking boys or others who we find to be at risk academically or socio-emotionally in Canadian schools. </p>
<p>We also hope we will identify characteristics of supportive ESL environments and inform early intervention through effective ESL program design and teacher professional development. Our hope is to provide information that informs parents about how to effectively support their children in school and at home in their early years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Gunderson receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guofang Li receives funding from SSHRC Insight Grants, Canada.</span></em></p>A Vancouver study found Mandarin-speaking girls were more likely to be eligible for university than Cantonese-speaking boys. High-achieving students were from wealthier families who had tutors.Lee Gunderson, Professor, Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British ColumbiaGuofang Li, Professor + Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Transnational/Global Perspectives of Language and Literacy Education of Children and Youth, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1390112020-06-03T15:16:32Z2020-06-03T15:16:32ZUnmasking the racial politics of the coronavirus pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337696/original/file-20200526-106823-1q5moeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=79%2C110%2C3895%2C2525&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While primarily a protective measure, the COVID-19 mask has also become a symbol of good citizenship, but wearing a mask safely in public may require white privilege.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently, the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html">advised that along with physical distancing, wearing protective masks slows the spread of COVID-19</a>. Canada has made a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/masks-covid-19-pandemic-public-health-1.5576895">similar announcement</a>. </p>
<p>Over 50 countries <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/countries-wearing-face-masks-compulsory-200423094510867.html">now mandate wearing masks in public</a>. </p>
<p>While primarily a protective measure, the COVID-19 mask has also become a cultural icon. In western nations it has become a marker of social responsibility and good citizenship. It represents the wearer’s compliance with public safety and communal well being <a href="https://umdearborn.edu/news/all-news/articles/study-finds-wearing-really-about-caring">through exercising care for one’s self and others</a>. </p>
<p>During the 2003 SARS crisis, “mask culture” was seen as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781444305012.ch8.">fostering a sense of mutual obligation and civic duty</a>. Similarly in our current pandemic, wearing a protective mask signifies a commitment to the social and collective good of society.</p>
<p>But how does that perception change when a face mask is worn by someone who is Asian? Or a Black man? Why do some jurisdictions outlaw the face veil or niqab worn by some Muslim women while mandating protective masks? </p>
<h2>Whiteness and unearned privilege</h2>
<p>Through European colonialism whiteness became the standard against which all other bodies are marked, judged and codified. American anti-racism educator Peggy MacIntosh argues that whiteness provides an “<a href="https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf">invisible knapsack</a>” of unearned privileges that white people can often take for granted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338572/original/file-20200529-96713-1q0bzhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masks can be seen as a sign of good civic duty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Bára Buri/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are basic things like: going shopping and not be followed or harassed; never being asked to speak for all white people; and not having to educate one’s children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.</p>
<p>The concept of white privilege can be related to how COVID-19 mask-wearing is seen differently when worn on racialized bodies.</p>
<h2>Yellow Peril</h2>
<p>For more than 100 years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-asian-racism-during-coronavirus-how-the-language-of-disease-produces-hate-and-violence-134496">Asians in North America have</a> been represented as diseased foreigners and more recently blamed as “pandemic starters.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337692/original/file-20200526-106811-1kooy9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research shows the Canadian media over-represented Asians in masks during SARS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jeremy Stenuit/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than exemplifying a commitment to the public good, an abundance of pictures of Asian individuals wearing masks may have accelerated the circulation of derogatory stereotypes. Research has shown Canadian press photos related to the 2003 SARS crisis <a href="https://www.academia.edu/919335/Yellow_peril_revisited_Impact_of_SARS_on_the_Chinese_and_Southeast_Asian_Canadian_communities.">used Asians wearing masks as a dominant image</a>. With COVID 19, the trend of using masked Asian faces as the emblem of the crisis <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/3/6/21166625/coronavirus-photos-racism">continues the trajectory of these racist depictions</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of representing a good citizen helping to stop the spread of a possible contagion, a protective mask transforms Asian bodies into the source of contagion. Trump’s insistence in referring to COVID-19 as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-chinese-virus-the-politics-of-naming-136796">“Chinese virus” dangerously reinforced the racializing of this disease</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-asian-racism-during-coronavirus-how-the-language-of-disease-produces-hate-and-violence-134496">Anti-Asian racism during coronavirus: How the language of disease produces hate and violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-has-put-a-harsh-spotlight-on-the-anti-asian-racism-that-has-always-existed-in-canada-1.5572674">Anti-Asian hate crimes</a> including physical and verbal assaults and vandalism have escalated along with the pandemic. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/go-back-to-where-mother-daughter-duo-fight-back-against-alleged-racist-taunts-in-richmond-1.5565451">recent report</a> told a story of a woman in British Columbia who was accosted by two white men who yelled at her and her mother: “Look at you with your masks, you’re what’s wrong with society.” </p>
<p>The risk of such attacks and harassment confronts Asian diasporas with a difficult choice: <a href="https://hongkongfp.com/2020/04/18/coronavirus-masks-reveal-racism-cultural-differences-and-govt-incompetence/">wear a mask and risk being subjected to violence or do not and bear the risk of contracting the virus</a>.</p>
<h2>Mask-wearing while Black</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/13/black-man-think-twice-wearing-face-mask-in-public-racism/">A Black physician in Boston wrote</a> about his internal struggle with wearing a mask in public because of the racist fears it evokes. He said: “I wonder whether someone would call the police on me, a ‘suspicious’ Black man in a face mask. I negotiate with myself whether risking my life is worth a $300 fine.” </p>
<p>He has reason to worry. A Black doctor in Miami wearing a surgical mask was <a href="https://time.com/5821250/homemask-masks-racial-stereotypes/">handcuffed outside his home</a> by police. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337745/original/file-20200526-106828-yrnayx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Black doctor in Miami wearing a surgical mask was handcuffed outside his home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The killings of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/us/ahmaud-arbery-911-call-mcmichaels-phone/index.html">Ahmaud Arbery</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/may/29/george-floyd-killing-protests-minneapolis-minnesota-us-twitter-donald-trump-latest-news-live">George Floyd</a> in the United States are tragic events that reveal the very real dangers Black people face on a daily basis. And yet in early May, heavily armed, white protesters <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/157593/all-consuming-white-pandemic-protester">stormed the Michigan State capitol without incident</a>.</p>
<p>A campaign spearheaded by a Black clergy in Illinois in co-operation with local police, called “<a href="https://www.kwqc.com/content/news/Why-you-should-Tip-Your-Mask--569907021.html">Tipping the Mask</a>,” asked people to show shopkeepers their faces when entering stores to mitigate against potential racial fears and violence. </p>
<p>A Black pastor recommended that his son put on his mask once he is already in the store for “fear of what others might think when they see a Black man in a mask.” </p>
<p>The concept of “mask tipping” calls upon racialized bodies to reveal themselves as “safe” and in return avoid biases and endangerment. </p>
<h2>Islamophobia and government hypocrisy</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338574/original/file-20200529-78863-6ik3q4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Québec Premier François Legault after removing his mask.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Québec, <a href="http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-21-42-1.html?appelant=MC">Bill 21</a>, which outlaws religious symbols in public, leaves Muslim women who wear a niqab in breach of the law and denied access to social services, despite government requests for public face coverings due to the pandemic. </p>
<p>France also mandates wearing masks but has not lifted its ban on the niqab. Fatima Khemilat, a researcher in France <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-face-masks-coronavirus/2020/05/09/6fbd50fc-8ae6-11ea-80df-d24b35a568ae_story.html">exposes the irony</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you are Muslim and you hide your face for religious reasons, you are liable to a fine and a citizenship course where you will be taught what it is to be a good citizen …. But if you are a non-Muslim citizen in the pandemic, you are encouraged and forced as a ‘good citizen’ to adopt ‘barrier gestures’ to protect the national community.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Muslim women who wear a niqab are not considered good liberal citizens because their covered faces are deemed culturally irreconcilable with western society. They face being penalized for violating the law while those wearing COVID-19 masks are seen as good citizens upholding the public good. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 mask is a barrier to transmission of the virus while the niqab is a barrier to social inclusion. </p>
<p>Not having to think about how one’s body is read by others when wearing a mask is a privilege of whiteness that eludes racialized groups. White mask privilege includes: not having to bear the racial stigma of being seen as a foreign disease carrier, being safe whether or not you “tip your mask,” having the ability to cover your face in public and not be denied social services. </p>
<p>Rather than serving as a levelling device the cultural politics behind wearing masks exposes the racial fault lines of the pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmin Zine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the coronavirus pandemic, wearing a protective mask signifies a commitment to the social and collective good of society. But that changes when a face mask is worn by Black and racialized people.Jasmin Zine, Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1261672019-11-20T14:01:45Z2019-11-20T14:01:45ZWas that joke funny or offensive? Who’s telling it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302314/original/file-20191118-169393-2lq9do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C68%2C758%2C481&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The identity of the joke-teller matters more than you might think.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/singer-using-microphone-728477314?src=060991b1-5dcf-406c-8fc0-bcadf79d598e-2-20">Jamesbin/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 2019, before the start of its 45th season, “Saturday Night Live” brought on some new cast members. The decision to hire one of them, Shane Gillis, <a href="https://time.com/5677048/snl-shane-gillis-controversy/">was roundly criticized</a> after disparaging jokes he’d made at the expense of Asian and gay people quickly surfaced.</p>
<p>A week after announcing Gillis’ hire, the show fired him.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/09/saturday-night-live-season-45-cast-bowen-yang">critics widely lauded</a> the addition of comedian Bowen Yang that same season. Ironically, Yang also tends to poke fun at Asian and gay people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX0QMAEi2TM">during his sets</a>.</p>
<p>So, why did Yang get to keep his job, while Gillis lost his? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.socialpsychs.com/dr-michael-thai/">We</a> <a href="https://www.fortlewis.edu/majorsandprograms/Facultyprofiles/Facultyprofileslist/borgella.aspx">study</a> why some jokes land and others don’t – and why the identity of the person telling the joke matters. Yang, it seems, can “get away” with this sort of humor precisely because he is both Asian and gay, while Gillis is neither.</p>
<h2>Being ‘in’ on the joke</h2>
<p>Many of us intuitively understand that it’s more permissible for people to openly judge or criticize social groups they belong to than those they do not belong to. </p>
<p>For example, many Americans may feel justified in calling out the country’s faults while lambasting a non-American for doing the same. This phenomenon is called the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.90">intergroup sensitivity effect</a>, and we wondered whether it applied to humor.</p>
<p>To test this, we ran a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103838">series of studies</a> in which we examined whether people’s reactions to disparaging jokes would change based on who was telling the joke.</p>
<p>In our first study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to either a gay or a straight man who had posted a joke about gay people. We then asked the participants to rate how funny, offensive and acceptable they found the joke. Participants considered the joke funnier, less offensive and more acceptable if the poster was gay.</p>
<p>We wanted to know whether this effect also applied to jokes about race. So, in a second study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to an Asian, black or white man who had posted a joke about Asian people. Here, participants rated the joke as funnier, less offensive and more acceptable when the owner of the Facebook profile was Asian.</p>
<p>We then ran a third study in which we directly asked participants how acceptable it was for members of different social groups to make jokes about their in-group or various out-groups. We found that participants, on a consistent basis, were more receptive to humor based on gender, race and sexual orientation if the person making the joke was also a member of the targeted group.</p>
<h2>Why might group membership matter?</h2>
<p>So why, exactly, does the group membership of the joke teller matter so much? We think it may have something to do with how an audience interprets the joke’s intent. </p>
<p>Some humor researchers <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2016-14460-009.html">distinguish</a> between what they call “antisocial intentions” – in which humor is used to inflict harm and reinforce stereotypes about a social group – and “prosocial intentions” – where humor is used to empower the group and challenge stereotypes about it. </p>
<p>When humor is deployed in a <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=D6591C">self-referential</a> way, perhaps the audience is more prone to perceive it through a prosocial lens. </p>
<p>For example, when Bowen Yang speaks with an exaggerated Chinese accent, audiences may more readily construe this as coming from a benign place. Maybe he’s satirizing the racist ways in which others portray Chinese people, or perhaps he’s affectionately parodying his own culture. But no matter the real reason, he certainly wouldn’t want to inflict harm on his own group – or so the thinking goes.</p>
<p>On the other hand, when Shane Gillis does the same, audiences may be less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt – and more likely to infer malign and racist intentions. He doesn’t identify with his targets in any way. Maybe he truly does harbor disdain.</p>
<p>Alternatively, it may simply be the case that people are given greater “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(10)43003-8">license</a>” to make disparaging jokes about groups they’re a part of, irrespective of their motives. </p>
<p>We plan to test these potential processes across a new set of studies. Nonetheless, our findings show that comedians and humorists, professional or otherwise, should be ever mindful of group dynamics. They could be the difference between a joke being met with rollicking laughter or awkward silence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study highlights the importance of the ‘intergroup sensitivity effect’ in comedy, which gives people license to tell certain jokes, but not others.Michael Thai, Lecturer, The University of QueenslandAlex Borgella, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Fort Lewis CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078722019-01-07T11:42:46Z2019-01-07T11:42:46ZWhite right? How demographics is changing US politics<p>When Donald Trump was campaigning to become the U.S. president, much of the discussion about his growing popularity focused on so-called “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/08/angry-white-men-love-donald-trump">angry white males</a>,” who had been struggling through years of declining economic opportunities. Their frustration led some of them to adopt and espouse <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/ordinary-white-supremacists/index.html">white supremacist ideology</a>.</p>
<p>In many media portrayals, these men, their anger and their sometimes extreme views on how to return to economic and political relevance were treated as a new phenomenon. </p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/css/about/monica-duffy-toft/">scholar of demography and civil war</a>, I can say definitively that none of this is actually new. Declining opportunities for white males and racist ideology have long been features of U.S. politics, from at least the 1930s until now. </p>
<p>So, the real question is, why are we seeing an upsurge of white nativism among white males now – a nativism which combines anger over lost status with a historically bankrupt white supremacist ideology?</p>
<h2>Lagging whites, growing minorities</h2>
<p>According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s data, all racial and ethnic minorities are growing faster than whites. Interestingly, one of the fastest growing groups in this country is “mixed race” (full disclosure: my children are such, being both Mexican- and Irish-American). </p>
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<p>Still, at 198 million, non-Hispanic whites remained the largest group of Americans in 2014; followed by Hispanics at 55.4 million, and blacks or African-Americans at 42 million. Those who identified with two or more races <a href="https://www.census.gov//content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf">stood at just under 8 million</a>. </p>
<p>The Census Bureau projects the crossover point at which the non-Hispanic white population will no longer be a majority will occur in 2044. In fact, no one group will comprise a majority. We will become a plural nation of different ethnic and racial groups.</p>
<h2>Demography and democracy</h2>
<p>That powerful shift in the makeup of the U.S. population has created ideal conditions for a political backlash against people of color, including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and especially immigrants of color. </p>
<p>One prominent example: President Trump’s lament that the U.S. was being <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/368576-trump-rips-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-in">overwhelmed by immigrants from “s-hole countries,”</a> rather than from places like Norway. </p>
<p>The backlash also extends to the political leaders who support minorities’ right to be accepted and respected as Americans.</p>
<p>These communities of color remain in the minority. But already in some states, white voters as distinct from all whites are in the minority, and nationally, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/07/01/484325664/babies-of-color-are-now-the-majority-census-says">whites are unlikely to remain in the majority for long</a>. </p>
<p>In California, for example, <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article25940218.html">non-white populations now make up 62 percent of the population</a>, with Hispanic and white populations at near parity at 38 percent each. </p>
<p>Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are among three southern states where the <a href="https://statisticalatlas.com/state/California/Race-and-Ethnicity">gap between Hispanic minorities and white majorities is closing</a>. Like Florida, these are also states with difficult-to-seal borders and with well-established immigrant communities.</p>
<h2>Politics and population shifts</h2>
<p>For two decades, I have been studying how population shifts across nation-states have led to their collapse. In some cases, those collapses have been violent, such as in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14649284">Lebanon in the 1970s</a> and <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union">the Soviet Union</a> in the 1990s. </p>
<p>Now, demographic dynamics we previously witnessed in “other” or “developing” states are happening in the U.S.</p>
<p>In places where white people have been a demographic majority, white nativism – characterized by the longing for a period when whites were dominant political and economically – arises when some of the majority white population fears for the loss of its stature relative to non-white populations. And in the U.S., <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/07/01/484325664/babies-of-color-are-now-the-majority-census-says">non-whites have higher birth rates and make up the bulk of new immigrants</a>. </p>
<p>As populations shift in democracies, the key question is which group challenges these changes, when – and how? Is it the expanding minority or the declining majority? Is it a combination of fear and desire for change emanating from both the declining majority and rising minority?</p>
<h2>Fighting for lost dominance</h2>
<p>My research reveals that it is the declining majority that tends to act aggressively, often imagining <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03050620701449025">it must preempt a rising minority</a>. Simply put, declining majorities don’t want to yield their status or hegemony.</p>
<p>This turns demographic shifts into a struggle about power and dominance, with elements of the majority refusing to cede ground to emergent new pluralities and majorities that might displace them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252531/original/file-20190104-32145-zyx5qe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Trump’s travel ban targeted Muslims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-02-01/pdf/2017-02281.pdf">Government Publishing Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The result, historically, follows a general pattern: The declining majority resorts to various forms of apartheid, including changes to voting laws, voter suppression and new restrictions on immigrants, and requirements for citizenship. </p>
<p>Examples include Israel’s successive moves to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/10/10/445343896/in-israel-a-new-battle-over-who-qualifies-as-jewish">tighten the definition of who is a Jew</a>; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/europe/britain-european-union-brexit.html">Britain’s 2016 referendum on membership in the European Union</a> (for working-class Brits, the immigrants of “color” were Pakistanis and Poles); and the new <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/trump-travel-ban-supreme-court-decision-countries-map/">U.S. ban on immigrants from seven predominately Muslim countries</a>.</p>
<p>Only rarely do a declining majority’s efforts to maintain dominance escalate to violence or state collapse, as was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/26/world/end-of-the-soviet-union-the-soviet-state-born-of-a-dream-dies.html">the case with the Soviet Union</a>. </p>
<h2>From demographic to political decline</h2>
<p>Mirroring the decline in fortunes of the “angry white male” who supported President Trump is the declining fortunes of the Republican Party. </p>
<p>The current U.S. president leads a minority political party whose <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/">membership has been in decline for over two decades</a>. </p>
<p>President Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/index.html">lost the general election by over 3 million votes</a>. The number of U.S. citizens of voting age <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/">who identify as Republicans</a> has dropped steadily since 1994, compared to those who identify as Democrat or Independent.</p>
<p>The GOP has managed its decline in exactly the same way a declining white majority population might have done: It has resorted to extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, calls for limits on immigration, and now citizenship restrictions. </p>
<p>The president’s angry rhetoric has arguably been responsible for fomenting a rise in overt bigotry, and in rare but an increasing number of cases, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-the-united-states-right-wing-violence-is-on-the-rise/2018/11/25/61f7f24a-deb4-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html?utm_term=.b5b3a3abe07e">violence against non-white immigrants, and ethnic, religious, disabled and LGBTQ minorities</a>. In one documented case, a 56 year-old Trump supporter named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/nyregion/cnn-cory-booker-pipe-bombs-sent.html">Cesar Sayoc mailed a series of bombs to “Trump critics.”</a> His van, in which he had apparently been living, was covered with often violent imagery directed against people of color and political opponents of President Trump, including a sticker featuring then-Representative Nancy Pelosi with rifle-scope crosshairs superimposed.</p>
<p>The partisan divide is further fueled by the conflict over whether non-white immigration is a threat to U.S. security and prosperity.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/26/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-proposed-changes/">Immigration to the U.S.</a> has been fairly constant since 1990. </p>
<p>What has changed is the number of refugees fleeing civil wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/us-accepted-refugees-2018/">who are coming to the U.S.</a> According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there are 65.6 million forcibly displaced people in the world – a population greater than that of the U.K. – of which about <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html">one-third, 25.4 million, are refugees</a>. </p>
<p>The numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers has been increasing since 2013. At the end of 2013, the U.S. hosted 348,005 people of concern – which includes refugees and asylum-seekers. By the end of 2017, that number rose to 929,850, with <a href="http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview#_ga=2.82367446.119990439.1544648438-1408415619.1544648438">asylum-seekers responsible for the significant increase</a>.</p>
<p>The research shows that immigrants are a net drain on national resources for the first few years they are here. But after those first years, the <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jan/23/donald-trump/does-immigration-policy-impose-300-billion-annuall/">costs and benefits of their participation balance out</a>.</p>
<h2>White nativism: Why now?</h2>
<p>Though economic opportunity – and specifically the decline in blue-collar jobs capable of supporting a family – affects the popularity of white nativism, it does not explain its timing. </p>
<p>The “why now” of white nativism is due to decades of demographic decline for white Americans combined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/fight-for-federal-right-to-education-takes-a-new-turn-108322">a serious decline in public education standards</a> that leads to unwarranted nostalgia and openness to conspiracy theories. </p>
<p>Add to that the charismatic leadership of Donald J. Trump, who attached white majority fears of status loss with criminalizing immigrants of color. That has stoked the flames of an already smoking fire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Duffy Toft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the US, non-whites have higher birth rates and make up the bulk of new immigrants. As white people lose their demographic majority, some will resist the accompanying political changes.Monica Duffy Toft, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/792502017-07-05T04:05:00Z2017-07-05T04:05:00ZSuburbs ‘swamped’ by Asians and Muslims? The data show a different story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174132/original/file-20170616-519-1flmii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only one Australian suburb, Lakemba in Sydney, has a population that is more than half Muslim.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Jane Dempster</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/is-australia-full-39068">Is Australia Full?</a>, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In her <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/1996/09/10/pauline-hanson-maiden-speech.html">maiden speech</a> to federal parliament in 1996, Pauline Hanson claimed Australia was in danger of being “swamped by Asians”. At her re-election to the Senate on 2016, Hanson <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-15/pauline-hanson-maiden-speech-2016/7847136">expanded her claim</a> to also being “swamped by Muslims”. But is this factually correct?</p>
<p>Using data from the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2071.0">2011 Census</a>, we analysed the distribution of Asians and Muslims at four spatial scales (neighbourhood, suburb, district, and region) within Australia’s 11 largest urban areas. We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2017.1329383">found no evidence</a> of any “swamping” by Muslims, or of ultra-segregation into “ghettos”.</p>
<p>There are concentrations of Asians, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne. But they are mostly neighbourhoods and suburbs where they form only a small minority of local populations.</p>
<h2>The geography of Asians and Muslims</h2>
<p>Asians form small minorities in about half of the more than 33,000 local neighbourhoods (average population of 430) across Australia’s 11 cities.</p>
<p>In another 40% of neighbourhoods, Asians comprise between 10% and 25% of local populations. In only 2% overall do they make up more than half the local population.</p>
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<p>The geography of Muslims is very different, and much less segregated. They are a much smaller proportion of Australia’s 11 metropolitan and major urban areas. But they are almost entirely absent from many neighbourhoods and suburbs.</p>
<p>In only 82 of the 33,337 neighbourhoods and in just one suburb – all in Sydney and Melbourne – do Muslims constitute half the local population. This amounts to 0.025%.</p>
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<p>In only four Sydney neighbourhoods and one in Melbourne (0.015% combined) is the Muslim population as high as 70%.</p>
<p>A figure of 70% or more is regarded in the international literature on Western cities as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2007.00579.x/abstract">indicating a ghetto situation</a>.</p>
<h2>Which cities stand out?</h2>
<p>So, one point stands out: local neighbourhoods where Asians and Muslims form a majority are almost entirely concentrated in Australia’s two major cities – Sydney and Melbourne. Brisbane and, less so, Perth also have very small pockets where Asians form half of neighbourhood populations.</p>
<p>In none of the other nine places is there even a single neighbourhood where Muslims form a majority of local neighbourhood populations. </p>
<p>In three of them – Newcastle, Geelong and Darwin – there are no neighbourhoods where Asians are a majority.</p>
<p>In Sydney, just under 8% of neighbourhoods contain one-quarter of the city’s Asian population. In Melbourne there are fewer Asian neighbourhoods, with 12% of the city’s Asian population.</p>
<p>The Sydney suburb of Hurstville, which Hanson <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-14/pauline-hanson-maiden-speech-asian-immigration/7645578">has identified</a> as somewhere “swamped by Asians”, has 63% of its population Asian. And nine other Sydney neighbourhoods are home to 13% of the city’s total Asian population.</p>
<p>But such a concentration is rare elsewhere. Melbourne has four districts (groups of suburbs) with Asian majorities.</p>
<p>Sydney and Melbourne also have the largest Muslim populations. But few are concentrated in areas – even at the smallest, neighbourhood level, where they form as much as half of local populations. </p>
<p>In only one suburb, Sydney’s Lakemba, is more than half the population Muslim (predominantly Lebanese). But even in a suburb like Lakemba, these concentrations are scattered across different neighbourhoods.</p>
<h2>Why the moral panic?</h2>
<p>Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that populist political parties like One Nation promote their causes <a href="http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509512160.html">by creating</a> “moral panics”, or fears of:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… some evil [that] threatens the wellbeing of society. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this situation, multiculturalism is presented as creating such fears where many of the immigrants are seen as “strangers”, culturally different from everybody else.</p>
<p>For some, known as “mixophiles”, the presence of such strangers in their midst is a positive aspect of city life. But not so among “mixophobes”, whom Bauman saw as concentrated among those who:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… lack the capacity to cut themselves off from [what they see as] … all too often unfriendly, distrustful and hostile urban environments. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This latter situation provides “highly fertile and nourishing meadows tempting many a political vote-gatherer to graze on them”. This, Bauman argues, is an opportunity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a growing number of politicians [not to mention certain media elements] would be loath to miss.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the Is Australia Full? series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/is-australia-full-39068">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Forrest does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Local neighbourhoods where Asians and Muslims form a majority are almost entirely concentrated in Australia’s two major cities – Sydney and Melbourne.James Forrest, Associate Professor of Geography and Planning, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/797912017-06-23T11:17:39Z2017-06-23T11:17:39ZUS Supreme Court decision risks deluge of racist and offensive trademarks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175268/original/file-20170622-13061-1kc8dt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1617%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomascbyrd/6221489571/in/photolist-atLsbD-atLL6z-atLsaV-4QkpHb-TWQmaM-TKkofZ-TKkqdX-TKkp5V-TmQyXj-TKkoQM-TGXC9N-TKkphP-TTf6dj-TTf5C1-TmQRtA-SEoKWQ-SEoGmd-TGXGjm-TmQTnA-TWQBKz-TTfc7J-TTf9DN-TmQPH1">The Slants in concert/Tommy Byrd/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You may not have heard of Asian-American dance-rock band, The Slants, but you may soon be very aware of a troubling precedent set after they <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalentertainment/2017/06/20/the-slants-win-big-supreme-court-ip-battle/#39c553ce7719">won a contentious legal victory</a> in the US Supreme Court. </p>
<p>Founder and bass player, Simon Tam, first tried to register the band’s name as a trademark in 2011. It was refused because the brand was considered disparaging to people of Asian descent. Tam reckoned the derisive terms of “slants” or “slant eyes” <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-asian-american-band-the-slants-scotus-win-w488615">were becoming anachronisms</a>, ripe for re-purposing and a chance for Asian-Americans to have the power over how they were defined.</p>
<p>His success means that the band’s brand is confirmed as registrable because it is protected by the first amendment to the US constitution. The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1293_1o13.pdf">Supreme Court opinion</a>, in effect, says that the registration of a trademark cannot be banned on the grounds it conveys ideas that offend.</p>
<h2>Race is on</h2>
<p>Good for Simon Tam, you might think. But the concern must be that this decision clears the way for the registration of many other names which are “scandalous, immoral or disparaging” – as the language of the law in question would have it. Registration of trademarks not only gives exclusive rights over brands, it encourages their owners to make investments around them and profit from the rights they have gained.</p>
<p>The case which most immediately springs to mind is that of the Washington Redskins. The American football team has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/washington-redskins-trademark-is-lost-but-not-the-game-yet-28192">embroiled in a similar legal fight</a> after the trademark office cancelled six registrations in 2014 under pressure from Native American groups, nearly 50 US senators, and the then-president Barack Obama.</p>
<p>The club’s owner Dan Snyder was <a href="http://www.csnmidatlantic.com/washington-redskins/dan-snyder-thrilled-supreme-court-decision-should-protect-redskins-name">quick to realise</a> the implications of the Slants ruling. “I am THRILLED,” he said in a statement. “Hail to the Redskins!”</p>
<p>Those who praise this ruling may argue that trademark offices and judges should not be concerned with assessing whether a brand name is immoral, scandalous or offensive. Market forces alone – the argument goes – will be able to address such issues. If a brand is genuinely upsetting or scandalous, consumers will vote with their wallets and push the brand out of the market.</p>
<h2>On the edge</h2>
<p>That argument is flawed. I believe the Supreme Court decision is an encouragement to corporations and business people to register and use controversial and scandalous brands in the US in order to acquire market share. Clearly, there are sections of the public who will be attracted to a product or service precisely because of a controversial, unpleasant or even offensive message conveyed by the brand. That will apply particularly in industries such as fashion, where to be rude or “edgy” may pay off. </p>
<p>In a world where sections of the public complain loudly about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/30/mp-says-tyranny-of-political-correctness-stops-debate-on-islam-and-extremism">tyranny of political correctness</a>, this ruling gives businesses leeway to loudly champion offensive or derogatory trademarks which mark that business out as a defender of those values and ideas. In other words, we will likely discover that offence sells – and may even become a driver of purchasing behaviour.</p>
<p>This shouldn’t be a surprise. Brand identities are often chosen for their ability to shock customers, especially in the youth market, or at least to send ambiguous messages. The FCUK trademark adopted by the fashion company French Connection is a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/fcuk-the-logo-that-became-a-no-no-7704257.html%3Famp">notable example</a>. Beer company Brewdog has sought to <a href="https://theconversation.com/offensive-marketing-can-work-but-not-if-it-vilifies-women-45447">emphasise its “edgy” credentials</a> with brands such as Trashy Blonde.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175271/original/file-20170622-12027-i1gbay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgy? Or just naff?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/soumit/77705281/in/photolist-6kJQur-6uaXPq-x6xV-5NrdiP-9fTsUx-7Sg5e-pFeFKX-45oPM-4gpHch-qn6thc-qn6t9g-q5FC2x-86cWbL-4KzTaU-9ztW71-4EbVZg-88Le28-7qaD6i-9ztW4N-9zqXcr-8SfW7z-93pGXk-8VLH4A-8Sj33s-8UuayE-9ztW1o-8Ur6n2-8UubWU-bhpsk-qn34jq">Soumit Nandi/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of these attempts are clearly distasteful, especially when the aim is to capitalise on tragedies. One Malaysian company <a href="https://theconversation.com/shock-marketing-reached-new-lows-with-mh17-trademarking-29721">filed an application</a> with the Australian trademark office to register the name MH17, just hours after the Malaysian Airlines flight had crashed into fields in eastern Ukraine, killing everyone on board. And dozens of people rushed to file trademark applications for exclusive rights <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/charlie-hebdo-opportunists-attempt-trademark-4979188">over the brand “Je suis Charlie”</a>, just days after the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.</p>
<p>These examples highlight why it is important for governments to maintain the ability to police the registration of these types of trademarks. There needs to be a mechanism to stop registrations which go beyond what is broadly accepted as decent and which seek to win consumers’ attention with brands which reinforce offensive views, or which cause needless distress to groups of people.</p>
<h2>F**king freezing</h2>
<p>Countries other than US are quite strict when it comes to denying registration, and discouraging the use of offensive brands. In Europe for example trademark offices and judges have <a href="http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/paki-sent-packing-as-general-court-gets.html">refused to protect</a> racist terms such as “Paki” or words with sexually explicit or vulgar content, <a href="https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o53801.pdf">such as “Tiny Penis”</a>, <a href="https://www.out-law.com/articles/2006/august/profane-trade-mark-rejected-except-for-sex-shop-use/">“Screw you”</a> and <a href="http://www.merkwerk.nl/1736/decision-to-refuse-the-trademark-fucking-freezing-confirmed-by-board-of-appeal">“Fucking freezing”</a>. </p>
<p>Some of these decisions were based on the assumption that the refusal to register these words does not infringe free speech rights, a position diametrically opposed to the one taken by the US Supreme Court in The Slants case. The ability to prohibit the registration of controversial brands is perceived in Europe as necessary to safeguard decency and morality in the course of trade and more importantly, protect ethnic and religious minorities as well as vulnerable people, including children.</p>
<p>Perhaps, if the US market eventually becomes flooded with openly racist and deliberately offensive brands, the Supreme Court will understand its mistake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Enrico Bonadio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Have American companies just been given the green light to deploy “edgy” branding that goes way too far?Enrico Bonadio, Senior Lecturer in Law, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.