Research Questions

The AAPI COVID-19 Project is a collective research project bringing together faculty, graduate researchers, and undergraduate research assistants at seven academic institutions in the United States. Our project explores multiple layers of harm connected to the pandemic — the virus itself and the intensification of racism and xenophobia that A/AAs & NHPIs have endured in its wake.

Our research is guided by the following questions:

1. How is COVID-19 impacting the ways that A/AA & NHPI are protecting and reshaping their communities?

2. How are these communities responding to challenges and threats related to the emergence of COVID-19 as a global crisis?

3. How do A/AA & NHPI responses to COVID-19 negotiate existing social inequalities across race and ethnicity, citizenship, gender, sexuality, class, and ability?

Disaggregating AA & NHPI Experiences and Perspectives

The ways that A/AAs and NHPIs are impacted by racial violence are distinct, and it is important for our research explicitly unpack how such communities are actually affected. For example, while some within NHPI communities may not be racialized and targeted as Asian-looking, these communities have faced tremendous loss of life and safety during the pandemic in equally violent, albeit differing ways than those who are targeted as Asian.

We believe that addressing anti-Asian violence must also mean addressing the multitudes of experiences that come from belonging to A/AA & NHPI communities, a vibrant demographic composed of over 50 ethnic groups. Read our Positionality Statement to learn more about our team’s vision for researching across diverse communities.