On March 16, 2021 a man killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, and injured one man in a shooting spree in Atlanta, Georgia. This violence has renewed broader calls to support our Asian and Asian American communities. The specifics of this tragic incident remind us that there are multiple layers of identity-based marginalization and hate related to gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality.  One solidarity movement with the victims of the hate crime is #StopAsianHate. This is not a response to last Tuesday’s events, but to a broader arc of increased hate crime since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Center for the Study of Extremism and Hate found that reports of Anti-Asian American hate crime have risen 149% between the years 2019 and 2020. 

Racism against people of color takes many forms, and it is tragic that this devastating incident has reminded us how racism operates against Asian and Asian American communities in the United States. Racism against Asians in the United States didn’t start with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that prevented immigration and denied citizenship; it was established here long before that as we built our nation off the backs of people of color. Racism against Asian Americans did not end dramatically after Japanese-American internment camps were closed; it still remains in the violent ways we saw on the 16th and in all of the other ways our students and colleagues experience it today. 

We want to reiterate that the Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics is committed to advocating for justice for all our marginalized colleagues of color and today in particular, for our Asian and Asian American mathematics communities. We are also suggesting ways that we all can better support our colleagues and students.

• Explore the links for more information throughout this post that reference both the historical context as well as the contemporary. 

• Challenge yourself to read research from critical education to shift your thinking about Asian(American) students and their STEM histories and experiences in the United States.  

• Think about what you can do to stand against Anti-Asian American racism. We also recommend the free bystander intervention training by Hollaback! as a great place to build tools to make a difference today. 

• Take the time to learn how to pronounce your students’ and colleagues’ names, a small step to relieve a common form of microaggression. 

• Finally, learn about your own biases and then reflect on how these biases influence your perspective as you navigate news following the Atlanta murders, increasing dialogue on Anti-Asian American racism, and connect it to your mathematics community. 

In conclusion, identify where you have agency to make change and commit to the work. Or in the more eloquent words of famous civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs:

“Our challenge, as we enter the new millennium, is to deepen the commonalities and the bonds between these tens of millions, while at the same time continuing to address the issues within our local communities by two-sided struggles that not only say "No" to the existing power structure but also empower our constituencies to embrace the power within each of us to create the world anew.”

― Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

Signed, 

Carrie Diaz Eaton, Chair, MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics

Michael Pearson, Executive Director, MAA

Cesar Martínez-Garza, Member - CMPM

Kamuela Yong, Member - CMPM

Dandrielle Lewis, Member - CMPM

Selenne Bañuelos, Member - CMPM

Francesca Bernardi, Member - CMPM

Vanessa Rivera Quiñones, Member - CMPM

Audrey Malagon, Chair, MAA Council on Teaching and Learning

Deanna Haunsperger, former MAA president

Edward Aboufadel, Chair, MAA Committee on Faculty & Departments

Deirdre L. Smeltzer, Senior Director of Programs, MAA

Also many thanks to those that provided feedback, including former MAA president, Francis Su, and Project NExT Director, David Kung.