A Look at Asians as Portrayed in the News

Lee, Joann, Editor & Publisher

DURING THE PAST four years, the number of hate crimes against Asian-Americans as reported by newspapers has increased dramatically.

From San Francisco to New York, the story is similar: Asians are attacked or made the target of racial slurs.

Newspapers attribute this in part to the tough economic times. When jobs are hard to come by and the economy is in a recession, Asians, regardless of their ethnicity, economic class, educational background or immigration status, are seen as one, a group of people most identifiable in terms of skin color.

Race is a uniform that cannot be hidden by economic achievement, the neighborhood where one lives or the kind of car one drives. Asians by virtue of their race are increasingly targets of bias.

A U.S. Civil Rights Commission study released Feb. 28, 1992, finds that violence aimed at the 7.3 million Asian-Americans in the United States (the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country) is "a serious national problem."

Two days before the commission's report was released, a Japanese-American was stabbed to death in front of his home by a …

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Publication information: Article title: A Look at Asians as Portrayed in the News. Contributors: Lee, Joann - Author. Magazine title: Editor & Publisher. Volume: 127. Issue: 18 Publication date: April 30, 1994. Page number: 56+. © 2002 Editor & Publisher. COPYRIGHT 1994 Gale Group.

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