ASIAN AMERICANS have long faced race and/or national discrimination discussed above in employment, education, housing, and voting. This discrimination has historically taken many invidious forms, including immigration quotas targeted at persons of Asian ancestry and the forced internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II.
OTHER CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN to the Asian American community include hate crimes based on race and/or ethnicity. For example, preliminary data from the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium indicates that there were 454 reported incidents of hate violence against Asians and Pacific Islanders in 1999, an increase from 1998.
VOTING RIGHTS ISSUES also remain a priority, especially with respect to limited-English-proficient (LEP) voters. For example, following the November 2000 elections, Asian American, Haitian American, Latino, and other language minority voters reported that they were denied language assistance to which they were entitled.
BARRIERS TO FULL EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY for Asian Americans include racial and/or national origin harassment in the workplace, as well as national origin discrimination that takes the form of bias against workers who speak with accents or unjustified "English-only" policies in the workplace.
GLOSSARY
- ACCENT DISCRIMINATION - Unjustified discrimination against workers who speak English with an accent.
- ENGLISH-ONLY - Unjustified workplace policies that require workers to communicate only in English even in situations where workers are communicating only among themselves on breaks, or in jobs that do not require contact with English-speaking customers or colleagues.
- LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENT (LEP) - refers to individuals who do not speak or read English very well or at all.
