The need for a counter-narrative on anti-Asian racism

It’s no secret that the uptick in expressions of anti-Asian racism in the United States, including verbal and physical assaults, is having a deleterious effect on the recruitment of international students in key Asian sending countries, the source of 70% of all international students in the US.

The most egregious cases have received extensive coverage in the Vietnamese print, electronic and social media. A number of parents whose children had been accepted to US high schools, for example, have changed their minds out of fear for the personal safety of their sons and daughters.

Just as the adverse impact of COVID-19 was greater on boarding and day school enrolment because of the age of the students, media coverage of anti-Asian incidents is likely to produce the same result because personal safety is of vital importance, especially when the students are younger than 18.

These parents will simply delay their children’s overseas study plans until the situation improves, send them to another country that is perceived to be safer or wait until they’ve graduated from high school and have them enrol in a foreign institution of higher education.

Another option is to give up on overseas study altogether and have them pursue higher education at home, where there are more viable options than ever.

Last year, when COVID-19 infections were at record levels, only the more adventurous and risk-tolerant students accepted their admission offers and travelled to the US to begin their studies. The positive experiences that they’ve had to date is testimony to the quality and leadership of their institutions and their own resilience and that of their parents.

Most Vietnamese and, presumably, other Asian students who study in the US, expect to encounter a certain degree of racism, likely of the “words can never hurt me” rather than “sticks and stones may break my bones” variety.

While it saddens me as a white US American, many of whose ancestors were the settler-colonisers written about in glowing, triumphalist terms in official top-down US history, this expectation is realistic. It exists and is spiking, the cumulative effect of four years of Trumpism and the racism and xenophobia that are characteristic of its leader and his legion of followers.

While we can’t change the conditions that gave rise to this form of racism overnight, whose roots were planted over 400 years ago with the arrival of the first settler-colonisers, we can address this concern, whether implicit or stated, when interacting with parents and students from Vietnam and other Asian countries.

The paramount importance of personal safety

The need for safety was acknowledged as a basic human need by the US psychologist Abraham Maslow and appears in the second tier of his famous “Hierarchy of Needs”. It has always been a primary concern among parents and many students considering overseas study, for some countries more than others.

In the case of the US last year, it was the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s complete and utter failure to contain it from day one. This year, anti-Asian rhetoric and violence are rearing their ugly heads, in addition to a jump in the number of mass shootings, one involving Asian Americans, both of which of which reinforce the US’s well-earned reputation for lack of safety.

As an academic by training, I look closely at as much data as possible that impacts our industry – for better and for worse.

The Mapping Hate Crimes in the US website maintained by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center under the UCLA Institute of American Cultures that tracks hate crimes in the US confirms one conclusion of a recent New York Times article, “Swelling Anti-Asian Violence: Who is being attacked where?”: namely, that most attacks are in mega-cities on the East and West Coasts with significant Asian populations.

(To illustrate an exception to this trend, they use the example of a 57-year-old man in Stevens Point, Wisconsin who showered some Asian American grocery shoppers with ethnic slurs in May 2020 because they were doing what every US American should have been doing, wearing face masks.)

Reassurance through action

Whether prospective students and their parents ask or not, US educational institutions that recruit Asian, including Vietnamese, students should assume that the issue of anti-Asian racism is very much on their minds.

Colleagues need to reassure potential students and their parents that they are safe in their academic and local community the same way many used their successful containment of the coronavirus as evidence that they care deeply about their students, faculty and staff.

In this context, talk is dirt cheap. More than words of reassurance, they need to provide specific information about what measures have been taken to protect members of their community. Merely saying it is safe and “you are welcome here” are not enough in this day and age, given what is happening and the rising level of sophistication of most students and parents.

The reality is that some places are more favourable than others, meaning more tolerant and therefore safer. This is a ‘selling point’ for many secondary and post-secondary institutions that should be highlighted in their promotional materials and interactions with students and parents. This message should be consistent from one institution to the next.

Related to this is the need to actively promote study in the US, still a brand in most countries, but one that no longer sells itself.

They could also call on Asian students and alumni to talk honestly about their experiences on- and off-campus. I know some who have yet to encounter racism in its passive or missionary form and others who have and have successfully dealt with the negative interaction(s).

Finally, those institutions that work with education agents and other partners should push this compelling message out to their network in Asia.

More specifics include the following questions: What are town-gown relations like? How does the institution deal with anti-Asian and other racist incidents involving words or actions? What is it doing to familiarise its academic and local community with the international students it hosts and their cultures? Is this thorny issue addressed in its international student orientation?

This is not fluff; it is truthful, on-point marketing that reflects positively on most institutions. Assuming they are ahead of the curve, they should not hide this particular light under a bushel.

Positive yet realistic messaging

The happy reality is that anti-Asian violence is not occurring in every town and city in the US, a vast country of 3.8 million square miles and 330 million people, just as run-of-the-mill crimes against people and property tend to be perpetrated in specific areas.

In addition to being proactive in the face of this spasm of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia, this is a positive message that should be consistently communicated to prospective US-bound students and their parents. In doing so, colleagues are not sugar-coating reality; they are recognising that it is not black and white but rather complex and technicolour.

The alternative – to do nothing or not enough – means that rightfully concerned Asian parents and their children will believe that the words they read and the images they see in narrowly focused media reports are happening everywhere in the US and this will lead to a concomitant decrease in interest in study in the USA.

Dr Mark A Ashwill is managing director and co-founder of Capstone Vietnam, a full-service educational consulting company with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City that works exclusively with regionally accredited colleges and universities in the United States and officially accredited institutions in other countries. Ashwill served as country director of the Institute of International Education-Vietnam from 2005-09. He blogs at An International Educator in Viet Nam. A list of selected English and Vietnamese language essays can be accessed from his blog.