Anti-Asian crimesCall for Action on Hate Crimes and Racism Against Asian-Americans

The Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in National Security, founded in 2021, is a grassroots initiative which seeks to advance discourse, develop policy, and implement solutions to combat the surge of hate crimes and racism against Asian-Americans in the United States.

The group has just issued a statement, signed by dozens of Asian-Americans involved in U.S. national security inside and outside of the government, calling for more effective action to combat the surge of hate crimes and racism against Asian-Americans in the United States.

Introduction
This statement began as informal conversations among Asian-American and Pacific Islander friends in the national security community. We shared personal experiences and, frankly, vented to each other about discriminatory and racist incidents. Last month, we began consolidating our thoughts into something more productive: publicly calling out the problems and gathering policy recommendations.

Our broader objective is to advance a much-needed discourse on combating the surge of hate crimes and racism against Asian-Americans in the United States — including the deadly March 16 shootings in Atlanta. We are hardly the first to call for action; our efforts build on an open letter published last summer that called for U.S. leaders at every level to take action against anti-Asian racism as well as many other letters, statements, and commentaries on these critical issues. Our target audience here, however, is much narrower: the national security community. This community faces additional unique challenges, such as ethnic profiling in security clearances, that require swift solutions but are esoteric to the general American populace.

This statement is meant to start conversations. We will soon host a series of private Zoom roundtables under Chatham House rules, so that various stakeholders are able to more openly express their views and give suggestions on next steps, including policy recommendations. We also want to discuss best practices and lessons from similar initiatives to push through real change while simultaneously moving towards the greater mission. We invite readers to co-sign our statement and to sign up to participate in the Zoom conversations.