By Irfan Shariff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Data shows a surge in Asian American hate crimes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet “there’s a profound absence of quality data reflecting the hate incidents and experiences endured,” states John C. Yang, president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC (Advancing Justice – AAJC) in Washington, D.C.
On Feb. 29, Advancing Justice – AAJC and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Southern California (AJSOCAL), in partnership with Microsoft, launched the Asian Resource Hub (asianresourcehub.org) “to fill these gaps, and provide awareness and data that empower the AAPI community to confront and overcome these challenges,” said Yang.
Combating anti-Asian hate and sentiment, a new web site has been launched. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
“We could not wait for the next tragedy to occur before we address this gap,” said Connie Chung Joe, CEO of AJSOCAL, citing the violence of the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings and 2023 Half Moon Bay shootings.
The Asian Resource Hub is a “free online destination that illustrates the Asian American experience within the scope of discrimination and hatred,” said Joe. In creating it, “we had two goals: to help viewers immerse themselves through interactive, vibrant data…and to provide, in their own Asian languages, a searchable national directory of organizations that offer culturally and linguistically appropriate help.”
The hub pieces together data from FBI reports, the U.S. Census Bureau, local law enforcement, and community trackers like StopAAPIHate.org and StandAgainstHatred.org, and weaves it into a format that Joe calls “scrollytelling, which is storytelling while scrolling.”
The Data Narrative section of the hub is a collection of visualizations and interactive dashboards powered by Microsoft’s Power BI software. The narratives range from demographic information and a timeline of anti-Asian hate to in-depth details on select cities and a history…
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