The COVID-19 pandemic and increases in racial and xenophobic discrimination have highlighted the systemic racism that is embedded in U.S. society. Since 2020, we have seen widescale protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism, occurring against the backdrop of a global pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian discrimination and xenophobia.
The CARA (Covid-19, Asian-Americans, Resiliency, and Allyship) Project at NYU aims to understand how Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are currently responding to the Covid-19 crisis and the escalating racial violence that has resulted in the deaths of George Floyd, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, and Duante Wright. With funding from the NYU Silver School of Social Work Seed Grant fund, we are studying AAPIs experiences of anti-Asian discrimination, coping and well-being, and critical awareness, civic engagement, and allyship activities with Black and immigrant groups.
in Fall 2020, we administered an online survey to a national sample of 689 Asian and Asian American adults. The majority (49.6%) identified as East Asian, 22.5% were Southeast Asian and 18.6% were South Asian. Another 6.2% identified as multiracial and 3.1% as multiethnic Asian. Using standardized measures, we assessed respondents’ exposure to stressors associated with the pandemic and the current racial climate, attitudes towards anti-Black racism, and perceptions of linked fate, collective racial identity, individual coping responses, civic engagement and activism, and other forms of resistance and empowerment against racism.
Read an interview with Co-Principal Investigators, Dr. Chang and Dr. Sumie Okazaki about the CARA Project.
