Asian American and Pacific Islander adults are reporting fewer overt anti-Asian attacks than they did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but concern about discrimination persists, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll released as AAPI Heritage Month begins.
The survey, conducted March 23-30 with a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based Amplify AAPI Panel, found that about one-quarter of AAPI adults say they experienced a hate crime or incident in the past year, including verbal harassment or physical assault. The result aligns with a survey conducted last summer, but it is lower than an October 2023 poll in which 36% said they were victims of abuse tied to their race or ethnicity over the previous year.
Preliminary FBI data, based on information submitted by law enforcement agencies, also reflects a decline in anti-Asian hate crimes and bias crimes overall between 2024 and 2025. Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data, said the pattern shows a “decline but a stabilization,” adding that “Both hate crimes and hate incidents are still an issue in our community.”
The new poll also points to changes in what kinds of discrimination AAPI adults report experiencing. About 1 in 10 say they have been called a racial or ethnic slur in the past 12 months, down from roughly 2 in 10 in October 2023. Around 15% say they have been verbally harassed or abused by another person in the past year because of their race or ethnicity, down from 23% in 2023.
Advocates said the tone of rhetoric has shifted away from COVID-19-related tropes toward anti-immigrant sentiment. Stephanie Chan, data and research director at Stop AAPI Hate, said, “We’re seeing things like ‘Go back to China’ still. But, it’s more like ‘ICE is going to deport you,’” and added that immigration enforcement rhetoric can “also” feed into anti-AAPI hate persisting.
Some AAPI adults described encounters that they said made them feel like outsiders even when they were in familiar places. Ambar Capoor, 52, an India-born naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the country for 26 years, said that last year while waiting in line at a Los Angeles-area restaurant, a white man pushed him forward and told him: “You don’t belong here. You should go back to your country.” Capoor said he tries to “shrug off these racist interactions,” adding, “None of this stuff normally bothers me,” and said he would walk away if someone started an altercation.
Nosheen Hamid, 36, a stay-at-home mother in Salt Lake City who has lived there since 2009, described being racially profiled in a mostly white community. She said a door-to-door salesman in her neighborhood asked her whether she was “renting here,” repeating the question multiple times, and she said the exchange briefly got to her because “People didn’t expect me to be in the space that I was, work-wise, school-wise.”
Even with those experiences, the poll finds that economic stress is now a more common driver of worry than discrimination for many AAPI adults. Around 4 in 10 say personal finances are a “major source” of stress, and about 2 in 10 say the same about health concerns and relationships with family or friends. By comparison, only about 1 in 10 say discrimination is currently a major source of stress, and around half say they do not see discrimination as a source of stress at all.
John Magner, 58, who said he is half white and also of Hawaiian and Chinese ancestry, described discrimination that he said can come from people within his broader community in Utah. He said a Pacific Islander customer at a hardware store called him “cracker and a little wannabe Pacific Islander,” and he said he does not dwell on those interactions, focusing instead on balancing family expenses. “Inflation and then also some family stuff that’s gone on, having to pay medical bills. It’s just bills,” Magner said.
Ramakrishnan said some of the attention on day-to-day economic pressures may also reduce scapegoating, arguing that the “likely reasons” for cost increases “have nothing to do with race or immigration.” He said those economic struggles are linked instead to factors people see driving up costs, such as tariffs, the war on foreign policy and AI data centers.
Some experts also cautioned that hate incidents and hate crimes can be underreported, and that experiences can differ among groups that fall under the AAPI umbrella. Chan said incidents are still “really high” compared with pre-pandemic levels, and she said there has been a recent rise in incidents among South Asians, citing FBI data and Stop AAPI Hate. Chan said the biggest spikes can occur “in moments of South Asian visibility,” such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election.
The poll of 1,228 U.S. adults who are Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for all respondents. The poll is part of an ongoing effort to highlight views of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, groups that are often less represented in other surveys because of small sample sizes and lack of linguistic representation.