Strained Solidarity: the Impacts of Anti-Asian Racism on Coalitional Attitudes

Abstract How has the unprecedented salience of anti-Asian racism resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic influenced Asian Americans’ coalitional attitudes, both within-group and towards other racial minorities? Asian Americans, as the fastest-growing racial minority group in the United States, could play a key role in advancing racial justice. However, Asian Americans’ ambivalent racialization as valorized relative to Latino and Black Americans raises uncertainty as to how they will engage with other communities of color and racial politics. Using observational survey data from the 2016 and 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post Election Study and an original survey experiment, we find that COVID-19 era anti-Asian racism can begin to facilitate Asian American alignment with other communities of color, but it depends on how the issue is framed and only specific subsets of Asian Americans who are less socialized in racial discourses are persuaded by these frames. This study assesses the challenges and possibilities of facilitating Asian American solidarity with other racial minorities.