by James A. Bacon

Asians comprise 7% of Virginia’s population, but according to the latest Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard, they account for only 3.6% of confirmed COVID cases, 4.5% of hospitalizations, and 1.5% of deaths.

That would seem to be good news for Asians and Asian-Americans. But never fear, the intrepid social-justice reporters at the Richmond Times-Dispatch can always find an angle supporting their narrative of racial oppression. An article published this morning focuses on the fact that Virginians with an Asian background are getting vaccinated at a lower rate than Whites, Blacks and Hispanics.

The RTD identifies some genuine obstacles that hinder Asians from getting vaccinated, such as the spread of rumors that non-citizens don’t qualify to get the vaccine, and limited proficiency in English, which makes it more difficult for public health authorities to combat misinformation. But the article also postulates some nonsensical reasons, such as the supposed “model minority” myth that all Asians are well educated and financially well off, and, in a total non sequitur, a supposed wave of of anti-Asian violence.

As we dissect this article, let’s start with the reality-based aspects of the story. Roughly 70% of Asian Americans in Virginia are foreign born. Many have limited command of the English language, one in four are non-citizens, and many live in ethnic enclaves. However, the classification of “Asian” is meaningless, a construct arising from American identity politics. Asians come from many countries — Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines, even Burma. They have diverse cultures and speak many different languages. That creates a problem for authorities translating public health notices into into multiple languages. The problem isn’t that these immigrants are “Asian,” it’s that they come from so many different countries and speak in so many tongues that it is difficult communicating with all of them.

This is a legitimate issue. The Virginia Department of Health was slow off the market making its COVID website intelligible to Hispanics, and even slower, it appears, making it intelligible to the speakers of so many Asian languages. Korean, as it turns out, is the third most commonly spoken language in Virginia (according to the RTD), and it might make sense to have a Korean language version. But adopting the website for every Asian dialect spoken in Virginia may be unrealistic. Instead, argue sources quoted by the RTD, VDH should be reaching out to Asian immigrant communities through churches, schools, hotlines, and community organizations.

“The biggest thing we found was that across all participants, the people that they named they would trust and listen to the most are the people within their personal network, and more specifically, spouses and siblings,” said Zowee Aquino, community health manager at NAKASEC, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Korean and Asian Americans.

If VDH has failed to reach out effectively, that is an administrative failure of the Northam administration.

Now, let’s deal with the red herring issues.

The RTD quotes Aquino as blaming the limited attention paid to Asian Americans on the “harmful model minority myth” that peddles the “falsehood” that Asians are the most educated among racial and ethnic groups and has the highest incomes.

I’m sorry, but this is Leftist drivel. Who is perpetuating the “model minority” myth? Conservatives don’t refer to Asians as a “model minority.” We do point out that Asians out-perform all other ethnic groups in educational achievement, have lower incidence of social dysfunction, and make per capital higher incomes on average than other race/ethnicities. This isn’t a myth. This is indisputable fact.

Aquino contends that almost one in five Asians live in poverty. I do not question that fact. It reflects the high rate of immigration of poor people from Asian countries to Virginia. These immigrants work hard, make their children work hard, and succeed. But achieving educational and economic success in America isn’t accomplished overnight with the snap of the fingers. It takes sustained hard work, self-discipline and family support — characteristics that native-born Americans once had in abundance but no longer do. Leftists don’t like to acknowledge these realities because it undermines their belief that the U.S. is a racist nation and, therefore, that race and “zip code” are destiny.

If the RTD wants to inquire why Asians have been neglected in VDH outreach, it would do better to explore why the Northam administration has prioritized vaccine distribution to Blacks and Hispanics. The answer, I am confident, has nothing to do with the “model minority” myth.

The RTD goes off the rails when it tries to pull in the Stop-Asian-Hate movement. The logic is tortured. See if you can follow.

Step one: There are economic and education disparities within Asian communities. Step two: Undocumented or mixed-status families did not qualify for public or unemployment benefits for a year. Step three: “Jeopardizing the standard of living further is the violence Asian Americans, and specifically Asian elders and women, have faced since the start of the pandemic.”

Wait… What?

The RTD continues:

Stop AAPI Hate, which has tracked anti-Asian incidents for more than a year, noted 49 reports in Virginia. One was in Annandale, where NAKASEC is primarily located. The Atlanta, Ga., shootings that killed six Asian women last week only heightened the horror.

Aside from the fact that this has absolutely nothing to do with the rate of Asian vaccinations, I have counseled previously on the perils of drawing conclusions about the prevalence of anti-Asian animus on the basis of anecdotal evidence. With every passing day, I become more convinced that this is just another Leftist narrative designed to perpetuate the racial oppression narrative.

We’ll have more up-to-date information when the 2020 crime data is reported. For now, we have to rely on 2019 crime data. According to the 2019 Crime in Virginia report, Asians were more law-abiding than all other racial/ethnic categories. They committed fewer crimes, and their victimization rate was lower than it was for Whites, Blacks and Hispanics. Asians, like all other Americans, are victims of robberies and muggings and hate crimes at the hands of perpetrators from other races. But in Virginia in 2019, the rate was low.

In 2019 two Asians were victims in Virginia of murder or non-negligent manslaughter. In other words, Asians accounted for 0.6% of all such victims whose race was known even though they represented 7% of the population.

In 2019, 43 Asians were the victims of aggravated assaults. Asians accounted for 0.7% of all such victims whose race was known.

In 2019, eight Asians were the victims of forcible sex offenses, or 1.1% of all such crimes.

In 2019, 148 Asians were victims of robberies and 1,985 of larcenies, or 3.7% and 2.5% respectively for such crimes.

Maybe the 2020 data will tell a different story. We’ll see.

One thing seems clear. The way to ensure that all Asian Americans and Asian immigrants get vaccinated is to focus on dispelling misinformation and reaching into  insular immigrant communities, not creating distractions with social-justice narratives.