Press Room

(Washington, DC) — In a recent statement, the officers of the National Communication Association (NCA) unveiled new initiatives to combat anti-Asian racism and violence, including special panels at the association’s November Annual Convention, a workshop for journalists covering anti-Asian violence,  programmatic collaboration with NCA’s Asian Pacific American Caucus and Studies Division, and other programs that will highlight the ways that Communication research can address and help diminish anti-Asian violence.

In addition to these future initiatives, the latest episode of Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast addresses anti-Asian racism and discrimination. In the episode, guests Zhuo Ban (University of Cincinnati), Richie Hao (Antelope Valley College), and Ali Na (Queen’s University in Canada) take on a range of topics, including the history of anti-Asian violence and discrimination, the gendered nature of anti-Asian violence, the role that corporations can play in the anti-racism movement, how teachers can address these issues in the classroom, the harms of the “model minority” myth, and the role that Communication scholarship can play in building anti-racism coalitions.

NCA also recently published an essay in its online Spectra magazine that explores the concept of “injured privilege” and its relationship to the Asian immigrant “model minority” myth. In the essay, Santa Clara University Communication Professor Hsin-I Cheng, who developed the “injured privilege” concept, argues that the term acknowledges the complexity of Asian Americans’ experiences related to discrimination and privilege and also recognizes how the model minority myth has silenced Asian Americans from sharing those experiences. Cheng notes that sharing stories of discrimination is key to Asian American political agency.

Finally, NCA’s Anti-Racism Resources Bank has been expanded to include resources that may be used to help combat anti-Asian racism. The resource bank includes a collection of news articles about how to practice anti-racism, the history of racial discrimination in the United States, and the erasure of Asian American history in U.S. classrooms. In addition, the resource bank includes a collection of books and films devoted to these issues, as well as a list of noteworthy organizations that are working to address racism in the United States.

Contact

To arrange an interview with expert Communication scholars, contact Grace Hébert at 202-534-1104 or ghebert@natcom.org.