Published on March 15, 2023 at 9:49 p.m.
Ordinary racism: people from Asia particularly affected – ©Brett Sayles
“It’s humor”, is what we often hear in racist anti-Asian remarks. This population would have a specific experience of racism according to a study.
This type of racism against people from Asia is particularly trivialized. This is revealed by a study by REACTAsia, “The experience of discrimination and racism of people of Asian origin – from East and Southeast Asia – in France”, carried out between October 2020 and September 2022.
Less visible in the fight against discrimination than racism against other populations, this phenomenon has been little documented: “the daily experiences of discrimination (…) against Asians in France are rarely the subject of reports officials”” underlines the study and “scientific research has until very recently been little mobilized to document (them).
“You smell the nems”, “bowl of rice”, ordinary mockery
Anti-Asian racism thus has its own specificities, such as trivialization and the fact that it is often justified by “jokes”. The public space, school and work are the places where these acts of racism occur most frequently. Children of restaurant owners reported, for example, that they had suffered teasing such as “you smell the spring rolls” or “bowl of rice”. Among the respondents, this experience of racism had a profound effect on them.
In the world of work, discrimination has serious effects on the recruitment of people, with a very strong racial assignment. For example, this graduate of a Parisian school reports that she “sent in her application for management positions but did not obtain any interview. The companies that called her systematically offered her positions as sales assistants”.
There is also a gender difference in anti-Asian racism. While men are deemed less virile than Western men, women are systematically sexualized and objectified. There would also be a difference in treatment between people from different Asian countries. “The rate of reaction and recourse (for example, filing a complaint) remains very rare”, underlines one of the authors of the study.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a time when Asian people were particularly targeted by racist remarks. However, this allowed a broader awareness of situations that were not acceptable to respondents.
