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Graphic Truth: Asian American population boom
Asian Americans had the highest population growth rate among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States between 2000 and 2019, rising roughly 81% to about 24 million people. The boom – driven mainly by immigration – is projected to continue, rising to 35.8 million by 2060, more than triple their 2000 population.
Historically, Asians have been subject to exclusionary policies in the US thanks to racial prejudice and economic fears. This began with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers and denied citizenship, and the 1924 Immigration Act, which banned all Asian immigrants. The US began relaxing immigration restrictions in 1943, culminating in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished racial quotas and allowed more diverse Asian immigration.
Today, the Asian population in the US is complex, tracing its roots to more than 20 countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. But discrimination is still rampant. With the outbreak of COVID-19, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, there was a sharp rise in physical attacks against Asian Americans. Today, 87% of Asian Americans say they face societal discrimination, and 26% say they fear someone might threaten or attack them because of their race or ethnicity.
As we mark Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — officially proclaimed for the first time in 1990 — we look at the growth of the Asian American population over the past century.
How the pandemic has increased violence against women and worsened inequality
This week's horrific Atlanta shooting, which took the lives of six women of Asian descent, stirred outrage and fear across the US at a time when Asian and Asian American women are facing an onslaught of verbal and physical violence. But violence against women has been skyrocketing across the world since the start of the pandemic, says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women. Mlambo-Ngcuka joined Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk about how COVID-19 has turned back the clock on the global fight for gender equality and the toll that it has taken on girls, in particular.
In fact, the UN estimates that as many as 11 million girls who left school because of the pandemic will never return. At the same time, it is women primarily who have been getting the world through the worst pandemic, as they occupy the majority of frontline and healthcare jobs. You can catch Mlambo-Ngcuka's interview on the latest episode of GZERO World, which starts airing on public television stations nationwide starting Friday, March 19. Check local listings.
What We're Watching: Brazil's COVID battle, crimes against Asian-Americans
Brazil's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse: Brazil recorded more than 90,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the country's highest daily caseload since the pandemic began. As the country grapples with the world's second highest death toll, even President Jair Bolsonaro, a COVID skeptic who has rejected masks and refused a vaccine, warned this week that Brazil is entering a "more aggressive phase" of the pandemic. Bolsonaro's refusal to take the virus seriously, and his attempts to stop state officials from enforcing lockdowns to curb the virus' spread, have led to a shambolic and fragmented pandemic response. That, in turn, has allowed the virus more time to mutate, giving rise to a new more contagious variant that is now ravaging the country, experts say. The country's sluggish vaccine rollout has only made things worse. Amid the chaos, Dr. Marcelo Queiroga, a cardiologist, was appointed Brazil's health minister this week, the country's fourth since the pandemic began. Queiroga said that he will need the president to grant him "full autonomy" to bring the country back from the abyss, but many analysts warn that it might be too late: Hospitals are nearing capacity in many states, ICU beds are scarce, and oxygen rationing has been rife, resulting in otherwise preventable deaths. Fiocruz, a Rio-based health institute, recently warned (Portuguese) that the crisis is "the biggest collapse of the hospital and health service in Brazil's history." While Bolsonaro appeared to defy gravity last year and maintain a steady approval rating, polls show that his star is falling: 54 percent of Brazilians now saying his handling of the pandemic has been "bad" or "awful." It doesn't help Bolsonaro's chances of making a comeback that the Supreme Court last week overturned the corruption conviction of popular leftist Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, allowing the former president to run in Brazil's 2022 election.
Anti-Asian crimes in America: Tuesday's shooting spree at massage spas in the US city of Atlanta — which left eight people dead, among them six women of Asian descent — has cast a spotlight on rising crimes against Asian Americans. While the motive that compelled the shooter is still unclear (the police says he told them he was not targeting Asians, but in the past he had expressed anti-Asian views on Facebook), what is undoubtable is that there has a been a massive spike in violence suffered by Asian Americans since the pandemic began a year ago. The numbers are stark: hate crimes — from verbal harassment to violence resulting in death — against Americans of Asian origin increased by nearly 150 percent last year in 16 of the country's largest cities, and the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate recorded almost 3,800 cases from March 2020 to the end of February 2021. Importantly, these are all self-reported incidents, so the real number could be much higher, particularly among older people who might be fearful of reporting crimes. Experts believe that COVID-19's origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and racist statements made by some Republican politicians, have both significantly contributed to the problem (even after the Atlanta shooting, former president Trump referred to COVID as the "China virus" in a public statement). Meanwhile, Asian countries like the Philippines are calling on the US government to do more to protect their nationals and American citizens of Asian origin. President Joe Biden has said that violence against people of Asian descent "must stop", and we're watching to see what actions he -- as well as local governments and communities -- are prepared to take to make that happen.
What We’re Watching: Iranian cat cornered on nukes, Italy’s political maneuvers, Asian Americans targeted
Iran says "fine, we'll just get nukes then, are you happy?" Iran has threatened to openly pursue the development of nuclear weapons unless the United States removes the sanctions that it has placed on the Islamic Republic. The threat, which came from Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, raises the stakes as Tehran and Washington explore ways to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration left in 2018. Since then, the US has piled on more sanctions while Iran has breached limits on uranium enrichment. Now both sides are deadlocked over who should climb down first: Iran says the US has to drop sanctions, while Washington insists Tehran resume compliance with the original deal again before that can happen. Iran has for years officially, if not totally convincingly, denied that its nuclear program is for military use — but "if a cat is cornered," Alavi warned, "it may show a kind of behavior that a free cat would not." We were disappointed to learn that Mr Alavi passed up the opportunity to make this statement while using a cat filter on Zoom.
Italy's two Matteos: As former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi continues talks to form a new Italian coalition government, two powerful politicians named Matteo are jockeying for his attention. The first is former prime minister Matteo Renzi, who is taking credit for forcing the collapse of the previous cabinet headed by Giuseppe Conte and ushering in Draghi's appointment to avoid a fresh election in the middle of the pandemic. The second is Matteo Salvini, a former interior minister under Conte's first coalition cabinet and leader of the far-right Lega party, who is now embracing Draghi to please his wealthy northern voters after years of railing against the same Brussels bureaucracy that Draghi espoused when he led the ECB. At this point it's unclear if either Matteo, or even both, will join Draghi's government. But having a host of forces willing to offer you their support from the get-go is a rare feat in Italy, which traditionally churns through PMs at rapid pace amid a deeply fragmented and dysfunctional political system. Maybe the widely popular "Super Mario" really can save Italy — as he did with the Eurozone — after all.
Hate crimes against Asian Americans: In recent weeks, Asian Americans — particularly the elderly — have been targeted in a wave of violent attacks. The issue gained nationwide attention following the death of an 84-year-old Thai man violently pushed in San Francisco. US celebrities of Asian origin are now leading calls for justice on social media, and activists worry that it's going to get worse this weekend due to the Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatowns across America. The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans told us that the spike in hate crimes is "the result of the hostile, xenophobic climate created by scapegoating Asian communities for the pandemic," and stressed that seniors are particularly vulnerable and isolated due to COVID mobility restrictions. We're watching to see if the Biden administration follows through on its promise to tackle racist violence against Asian Americans, and whether a successful vaccine rollout contributes to more safety for members of these communities in the US.