Asian American, Pacific Islander community leaders in LA urge action against hate crimes

By Sid Garcia

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- One of the ugly trends during the pandemic has been the increase in hate crimes against the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. There have been cases caught on video of physical and verbal assaults.

"The number of hate incidents in this country continues to grow both in numbers as well as severity," said Connie Chung Joe with the group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, from 2019 to 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans in Los Angeles more than doubled, from seven in 2019 to 15 in 2020.

Overall hate crime during the same period went up 9%. Advocacy groups gathered near downtown L.A. Friday calling for action to prevent crimes.

They point out it's something all of us can do by watching out for one another.

"I think it's about educating ourselves about each other, including each other in our community and understanding that we are here," said Nancy Yap with the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment. "We've been here and we're part of our neighborhoods. "

The advocates say they want the next state attorney general to be a member of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

They're also offering resources such as mental health and legal help to hate crime victims.

One of the things the group suggested we all do is simply reach out and get to know one another.

Failure to bridge divides of age, race doomed affirmative action proposition (LA Times)

The UCLA campus in Westwood is seen in February 2019. Concerns over admissions to UCLA and UC Berkeley drove much of the recent debate over whether to reinstate affirmative action in California.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Widespread skepticism in Latino and Asian communities and tepid support among younger Black residents combined with opposition from most whites to doom the effort this year to revive affirmative action in California, according to a new postelection survey.

The failure of Proposition 16, which voters rejected by 57% to 43%, marked a significant defeat for the state’s Democratic political leadership and many activist groups, which backed the Legislature’s move to put the proposal on this year’s ballot.

The findings of the survey provide the clearest evidence so far of the disconnect between those political leaders and many of their ostensible followers on an issue that has been a touchstone in the state’s political debates for years.

The survey, conducted by a coalition of community organizations, shows widespread support across racial and ethnic lines for diversity in education, public employment and contracting. At the same time, it showed broad skepticism about allowing government officials to use race, ethnicity or gender in making decisions.

On two other topics, the survey showed how attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic have grown more politically divided as the state heads into a period of renewed restrictions designed to limit the spread of the disease.

And it indicated that awareness and concern about racial and ethnic discrimination in the state has receded since reaching a high point this summer.

Asked how often they personally felt discriminated against because of their race or ethnicity, about one-third of Latino respondents said they experienced discrimination “frequently” or “sometimes.” That’s down from nearly half when the poll asked the same question in July.

The finding “reaffirms that these issues are difficult and complicated, and people just don’t have the bandwidth” to focus constantly on discrimination, especially when the impact of COVID dominates so many peoples’ lives, said Helen Torres, executive director of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE), one of the sponsors of the survey.

“It’s hard to sustain for the long term,” she said.

The share of Asian and Pacific Islander respondents who reported feeling discriminated against showed a similar decline since July. The share of Black respondents who reported feeling discriminated against did not significantly decline.

The California Community Poll, conducted online Nov. 4-15, was designed to provide a more detailed view of the state’s racial and ethnic diversity than is typically possible. It surveyed 1,300 adult California citizens, with over-samples of Black, Latino and Asian Pacific Islander respondents in order to ensure enough in each group to allow analysis by age, gender and other characteristics.

The margin of error is estimated at 2.7 percentage points for the full sample. The poll is sponsored by three community organizations — the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE), the Los Angeles Urban League and HOPE.

California banned most government affirmative action programs nearly a quarter century ago, in 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209. Since then, overturning the ban has been a major goal for many Democratic lawmakers and state officials, especially at the University of California, where deans and chancellors have repeatedly said that their inability to take race into account in admissions has kept the number of Latino and Black students well below their share of high school graduates who meet UC eligibility standards.

But as the poll showed, many Californians have more mixed feelings on the subject than their elected officials do.

The results show “a limit on California’s liberalism” that “requires some examination of the progressive base,” said Drew Lieberman, senior vice president of Strategies 360, the polling firm that conducted the survey.

Two-thirds of the California adults surveyed said they believe “diverse representation based on race, gender, ethnicity and national origin” is important, with about 4 in 10 calling it “very important.”

That’s true across major ethnic and racial groups and among both voters and nonvoters, the survey found. About 6 in 10 white respondents said they considered diversity important, along with about 7 in 10 who identify as Latino or Asian or Pacific Islanders. Among Black respondents, the share rose to more than 8 in 10.

But that didn’t translate into support for affirmative action. Among Latino respondents, for example, only 30% said Proposition 16 was a good idea, compared with 41% who called it a bad idea and 29% who said they were unsure. The division was similar among Asian and Pacific Islander respondents, with 35% calling the proposition a good idea, 46% saying it was a bad idea and 20% unsure.

White respondents were slightly more opposed, with 32% calling the measure a good idea, 53% a bad idea and 15% unsure.

Only among Black respondents did the proposition get majority support, with 56% calling it a good idea, 19% a bad idea and 25% unsure.

The views of voters and nonvoters were very similar, suggesting that higher turnout would probably not have changed the results.

Roughly a third of those polled could be characterized as solid supporters of affirmative action — people who said that diversity is important and the ballot measure was a good idea. On the other side, just over 1 in 5 say diversity is not important to them and that the ballot measure was a bad idea.

Another 1 in 5 say diversity is important but that the proposal was a bad idea. The members of that swing group are more likely than others to describe themselves as moderates and to be suburbanites.

Since the election, some supporters of the ballot measure have speculated that voters may have been confused about its potential impact. The survey does not support that. After asking people their opinion, the survey gave a more extensive description of the ballot measure and retested people’s feelings on it. The additional information did not significantly change people’s views.

In each of the state’s major racial and ethnic groups, the survey found significant divisions.

Immigrants, for example, were more likely to reject affirmative action than were people born in the U.S. That contributed to a significant generation gap among Asian Pacific Islander respondents, with those older than 50 — an immigrant-heavy group — opposed to affirmative action by roughly 3 to 1, while those younger than 50 were narrowly favorable. The poll found a smaller generational divide among Latino respondents.

“Many immigrants came to this country for equal opportunities” and are suspicious about preferences for specific groups, said Charlie Woo, the board chairman of CAUSE.

The survey also found Chinese American respondents more strongly opposed than other Asian Pacific Islander groups, with people who identified as Chinese describing the ballot measure as a bad idea by roughly a 2-to-1 margin. Opponents of the ballot measure argued that Asian American students would lose spots in the state’s premier universities if affirmative action were restored, an argument that was widely heard by Chinese Americans.

The poll results clearly showed “the impact of the concerns around public education,” said Nancy Yap, CAUSE’s executive director.

Among white respondents, people younger than 50 were almost evenly divided on affirmative action, while those 50 and older were heavily opposed.

Among Black respondents, the opposite was true: Older people overwhelmingly supported affirmative action; younger ones were more closely divided.

For the older generation, the impact of affirmative action “is clear,” said Michael Lawson, president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “The younger generation, who didn’t live through the elimination of affirmative action, they didn’t understand” the implications.

“If we’re going to eliminate Proposition 209,” he added, “it’s going to have to be a longer tale” than is possible in a ballot campaign.

On several topics, including affirmative action, the survey found wide gaps along partisan and ideological lines. That was particularly true on questions related to the coronavirus.

Overall, the survey showed a “widening partisan gap” in the state on responding to the virus, said Ben Winston of Strategies 360. The attitudes of liberal Californians and Democrats have largely remained the same since earlier this year, but conservatives and Republicans have shifted significantly toward opposing restrictions on commerce, supporting a full opening of schools and downplaying the impact of the disease.

In July, for example, about one-third of Republicans in the survey said they were not worried about themselves or someone in their family coming down with COVID-19. Today, that share has risen to 55%.

“Even as the death toll is mounting,” Winston said, there is “a stark and growing divide between the parties.”

Should you send your child back to school? Parents are stressed and divided (Los Angeles Times)

Natalie Burge, a teacher at Giano Intermediate School in West Covina, sits in her empty classroom. Officials are debating whether to reopen campuses in the fall.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Weeks before the start of school, Californians are deeply split over whether campuses can safely reopen amid the ongoing coronavirus surge — caught in a collective moment of uncertainty and anxiety also reflected among teachers and education leaders.

Parents, as indicated in a new statewide poll, are grappling with the prospect of stressful, less effective learning at home — not to mention continued child care woes — and fears that children exposed at school could bring COVID-19 and its potentially deadly risks into their home.

Similar concerns among school workers are expected to crystallize in Los Angeles on Friday morning when the teachers union will recommend a delay in reopening campuses tentatively planned for Aug. 18. For now, learning from home — in place since mid-March — should continue, union leaders said.

The California Teachers Assn. on Thursday made a similar but less explicit statement, saying that conditions for keeping students safe have not been satisfied statewide.

L.A. school officials have not yet made a final decision other than to say that instruction will begin on the first day of school, one way or another.

Yolanda Ford-Swinton, who cares for an 8-year-old granddaughter, exemplifies the angst.

“I do think she needs to go back at least some of the time,” said Ford-Swinton, whose granddaughter attends Cowan Avenue Elementary in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles. “But I’m so afraid because I don’t know what’s going to be in place.”

“Will everyone be tested for COVID-19 when they enter? If they have a fever, will they be sent home? Will there be a full-time nursing staff? It just creates a level of stress.”

Overall, Californians are closely split on whether to continue with distance learning or go ahead with a limited reopening, according to the poll, which was conducted in consultation with The Times.

About 4 in 10 California adults want to stick with full-time distance learning this fall. A similarly sized group favors a limited reopening with students in school on alternating days or on half-day schedules. The staggered schedule would allow schools to comply with social distancing requirements, which typically require students to remain six feet apart.

Fewer than 2 in 10 support having students attend classes full time in person on a daily basis — even if they follow social distancing guidelines, the poll found.

Respondents took part online in the California Community Poll from June 26 through July 6. The survey was commissioned by the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality and the Los Angeles Urban League. Strategies 360, a California-based polling and political strategy firm, polled 1,184 adult citizens. The margin of sampling error is 3 percentage points.

The question of when and how to reopen campuses has divided experts and roiled politics up to the White House, with President Trump this week threatening to withhold funding for schools that don’t open and challenging the advice of his own experts. He questioned the need for social distancing and labeled the safety guidelines from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as too tough, expensive and impractical. The CDC on Thursday refused to change its guidance.

“It’s clear that most Americans are much more conflicted about how to proceed — whether it’s about wearing a mask or sending their children to school — given the wide range of messages they’re hearing from their elected leaders,” poll director Dan Schnur said.

California officials are contemplating, at best, a hybrid format, with students combining online sessions and work-at-home materials with part-time classes on campuses in small groups.

Alberta Brinson Moore of Leimert Park explained her conflicted sentiments. Her 15-year-old son was “having the time of his life” at Dorsey High School, playing soccer, earning almost all A’s and making friends, despite having to work through attention deficit hyperactivity and a speech disorder.

Since the pandemic, he’s had only three speech sessions, and none of his online instruction has been live: “My son really needs some kind of social engagement.”

“But I’m a realist — we have to see what the numbers are,” she added, referring to the county’s spike in coronavirus infections.

Moore, 58, has diabetes and high blood pressure, and she recently received radiation treatment for breast cancer.

“I’m the person that — something happens, it’s not just gonna be a sniffle,” she said.

In the poll, undertaken before Trump began touting reopening schools, residents of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties — where the toll from COVID-19 has been heaviest — were significantly more in favor of keeping students off campus than residents of other parts of the state.

The poll found only small differences between parents and non-parents on the issue, but significant differences among different groups of parents. Among parents earning more than $75,000, about 3 in 10 supported a full reopening this fall. Among parents earning less than $75,000, only half as many supported reopening.

Black and Asian Pacific American parents were especially supportive of sticking with distance learning, with half or more in those groups in favor. Latino parents were most in favor of a partial reopening, with nearly half supporting that option. Whites, who have been less likely than Black people or Latinos to be hit by the virus, were the most evenly divided, with about 1 in 5 backing a full reopening.

Moreover, the political polarization that has divided Americans on nearly everything in recent years reinforces an urban-rural split, the poll found. Self-identified Republicans and conservatives, who are more likely to live in non-urban parts of the state, were much more likely to back reopening than were Democrats and liberals.

“These poll numbers show that Trump’s call for a full reopening is most popular with men, seniors and rural white voters,” Schnur said. “Trump will almost certainly not win California in November, but the demographic groups that are most supportive of opening the schools are the voters he needs to win in more competitive states.”

But for most — including education leaders — the issues are more pragmatic than political.

“It seems to me that we are ill-prepared for the reopening of schools,” said Lynwood Supt. Gudiel R. Crosthwaite. “Given the increase in rates not only in Southern California but throughout the country, it seems almost irresponsible for schools to open.”

Lennox School District Supt. Scott Price said he’s been involved in discussions with leaders of other school systems and some expect they’ll be ready with some form of hybrid learning, while others say they probably will need to start the school year using distance learning. His school system is working out its strategy for the fall.

Las Virgenes Unified, which straddles the border of Ventura and L.A. counties, announced Thursday that it would offer both a hybrid schedule and online-only instruction — not that it will be easy. The district already has spent $850,000 on safety and health enhancements, while cutting its districtwide budget.

“We’re still running about 70% to 30% in favor of being on campus.” Supt. Dan Stepenosky said. “Schools are critical for both public health and the economy. ... If we don’t open or don’t do it right, both the public health and economy will struggle.”

Antonio Mendez can attest to the economic hardship.

An independent trucker who lives in the San Diego area, Mendez took on responsibility for supervising his children’s studies while his wife holds onto her credit union job. He doesn’t have anyone besides his mother to watch his sons, ages 7 and 12, and he doesn’t want to risk exposing her.

“I don’t want to send my kids to school if there’s any threat of them catching this,” Mendez said.

For now, he wouldn’t feel comfortable even with a partial reopening of schools: “When I go pick up the groceries, I see people outside with no masks on. Those people might have kids. If they’re acting that irresponsibly … and I’ve gotta send my kids to school with those children, I’m not doing that.”

But Danielle Simmons, of San Bernardino, says her children, ages 7 and 10, need to get back to something as close to normal as possible.

“The distance learning,” Simmons said, “it really is a headache.”

Though Del Rosa Elementary provided a laptop and iPad, the family had problems signing into Google Classroom and muting microphones, eating up time and causing frustration.

Besides, her children “need that interaction. ... They need to get out of the house and go back to what they’re familiar to,” she said.

But she will also consider whether the school is operating safely and will keep watch for spikes in the virus, she said.

“Remote education doesn’t work very well for very many kids,” especially for young children and low-income families, said Jesse Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley, who’s had to help manage schoolwork for his own children at home. All the same, “you can’t go to schools if it’s not safe.”

And when it comes to the coronavirus, “there’s a lot of science that we don’t understand.”

Views on race relations in state alter dramatically as more white people see reality of discrimination, survey shows (Los Angeles Times)

Californians’ perceptions of race relations in the state have shifted dramatically since the spring, with views statewide having grown significantly gloomier than they were five months ago, according to a new statewide poll.

The survey, which compares its results to a similar poll conducted in February, offers a before-and-after look at how Californians’ attitudes have shifted in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak, George Floyd’s death and the nationwide demonstrations that ensued.

Some 54% of respondents said that relations between people of different races and ethnicities in California were just fair or poor, an uptick of 13 points since February. The number of California adults who believe those relations were excellent or good dropped from 57% to 44%, the poll found. The shift, the poll indicated, occurred across racial and ethnic groups in relatively equal numbers.

White Californians are now much more likely than they were earlier this year to say that Black people, Latinos and Asians are “frequently” discriminated against. The uptick comes as data have shown that the virus disproportionately affects Black and Latino communities, and has led to an explosion in anti-Asian hate incidents, said Paul Ong, director of UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, who was not involved in the poll.

“The impacts are unevenly distributed — whether we’re talking about health, whether we’re talking employment or stability or negative racial encounters,” Ong said. “Under COVID-19, those things have become much more visible and a lot deeper.”

The poll also found that respondents do not attribute the rising tensions to the recent protests over race and social justice.

On the contrary, most Californians, 55%, believe that protests over the deaths of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others have brought people in the state together, rather than splitting them further apart. A plurality of respondents described the protests as “justified” and “impactful,” at 31%, but also as “violent” and “dangerous” — 30% and 28%, respectively.

“The categories aren’t and don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” said Drew Lieberman, senior vice president at Strategies 360, the polling and research firm that conducted the survey.

According to the survey, 67% of Black respondents say that they face frequent discrimination in California. And although the poll shows that whites have become more likely to acknowledge discrimination against people of color, it registered a small countertrend in the increased portion of whites who asserted that white people face discrimination, and the number of whites who said that their racial identity is “extremely important” to them. Both those numbers have gone up, especially among Republicans and Trump supporters.

Respondents took part online in the California Community Poll from June 26 through July 6. The survey was commissioned by the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality and the Los Angeles Urban League in consultation with The Times. Strategies 360 polled 1,184 adult citizens. The margin of sampling error is 3 percentage points.

In addition to taking the pulse on race in the aftermath of nationwide protests, the poll also exposed the manner in which the COVID-19 pandemic “colors everything else that’s going on right now,” Lieberman added.

The poll also found that a majority of Californians believe police treat Black people unfairly and perceive systemic racism in law enforcement — a question that was not part of the February survey. Respondents were more divided on how police treat Latinos (46% believe Latinos are treated fairly, while 48% believe they are treated unfairly) and believe that police treat Asians and whites mostly fairly.

And while nearly all of those surveyed support police reform, Californians are divided on which reforms they support. Some 6% would abolish police departments and shift their funding and responsibilities to other agencies, while 12% would leave departments as they are and ensure they have the equipment and funding they need to do their jobs properly.

Another 45% support additional accountability and training, and 32% would go further to shift significant parts of police funding and responsibilities to other agencies while maintaining their role in handling violent crime.

“We’re facing a lot of these conversations, not because they’re new, but because of environment,” said Helen Torres, executive director of HOPE. “There’s huge racial inequalities in our communities and our society, and that creates frustration across the board.”

The data show substantial racial gaps on police reform, with Black respondents most likely to favor shifting funding and responsibilities away from police and whites least likely to endorse such major reforms.

Just over 45% of Black respondents say they would shift funds away from police, while 34% of Latinos and 28% of whites feel that way.

Police reform “is at the heart of a lot of the discussions that are going on,” said Michael Lawson, president of the Los Angeles Urban League.

“It is at the core of what Black Lives Matter is demanding, and is an essential part of moving forward,” Lawson said. “There have been discussions going back to the Rodney King situation. This is a continuation of that.”

The recent spate of police killings of unarmed Black Americans and subsequent protests has also led to a change in perceptions on discrimination, Lawson added.

“The visibility of people standing in the streets and saying, ‘Enough is enough’ is a big change,” he said. “There is something different. The needle has moved.

”Compared with February, white respondents are 18 points more likely to believe Black Americans are discriminated against frequently (from 22% saying as much in February to 40%), 10 points more likely to believe Latinos are discriminated against frequently (from 22% to 32%), and 13 points more likely to believe Asians are discriminated against frequently (from 7% to 20%).

There is a “continuing hierarchy” in which respondents perceive Black Americans to be the most affected by discrimination, followed by Latinos and Asian Americans, Ong noted.

Charlie Woo, the board chair of CAUSE, said it was important for Californians to understand that Asian Americans are also discriminated against.

“People need to be aware of the challenges we face,” Woo said. “The fact that Californians [now] recognize Asian Americans don’t just fit in as model minorities, but also are discriminated against and face challenges ... that’s big progress.”