COVID-19, Racial Discrimination, and Civic Engagement Among Asian American Young Adults

Purpose: Civic engagement is a meaningful outlet for racial/ethnic minorities to cope with stress resulting from discrimination and can function as a way to exhibit their collective resilience against racism. According to Sociopolitical development theory, racial discrimination is an important contextual factor that enables minority youth to gain an understanding of racial injustice and commit to social changes. Yet, others argue that discrimination makes people feel rejected by society and, in turn, can make them refrain from civic engagement that increases their ethnic/racial visibility. To fill the gaps between these conflicting perspectives, the present study examines how different types of discriminatory experiences (general vs. COVID-related) differently influence civic actions among two large Asian ethnic groups – Filipino Americans and Korean Americans.

Methods: Data are from the 4^th wave of the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families project that survey-interviewed 265 Filipino Americans [M_age = 21.54; SD = 1.83] and 348 Korean Americans [M_age = 21.23; SD = 1.85]) in 2022. Civic engagement measured four types of actions (i.e., general, social media, community services, and anti-racism action). COVID-19 specific discrimination measured four types of unfair treatment (i.e., blame, assault, avoidance, and vicarious). General racial discrimination was measured by a 5-item scale that asked overall discrimination experience committed by different racial groups. Using OLS regression, we tested how COVID-19 discrimination and general discrimination are associated with different types of civic engagement, adjusting for demographic characteristics.

Results: General racial discrimination was predictive of majority of civic engagement for both ethnic groups. We also found ethnic group differences in the relationships between COVID-19 discrimination and civic engagement activities. Specifically, avoidance and vicarious discrimination were related to more civic engagement only among Korean American group. COVID-19 related assault was associated with fewer general civic engagement for Korean American group, whereas it was predictive of more anti-racism action among Filipino American group. COVID-19 related blame was associated with more civic engagement for both ethnic groups. Direct effects were not significantly mediated by ethnic identity.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings have important scholarly and clinical implications related to healthy Asian American youth development. Despite the surge of anti-Asian racism amid the pandemic and the consequent mental burden among Asian American communities, our findings suggest that discrimination experiences may promote young Asian Americans’ collective actions overall. But more importantly, the current study also suggests that the two conflicting theoretical perspectives on the effects of racial discrimination on civic engagement may not be mutually exclusive. Rather, it is possible that one theory can better describe the experience of certain subgroups of Asian American young adults than others in the context of COVID-19 and increasing hostile and explicit anti-Asian racism. As we found, for example, the violent forms of COVID-19 discrimination (i.e., physical or verbal assaults) may discourage civic actions among some Asian American subgroups. These findings highlight the importance of providing adequate coping resources or supporting services especially for the targeted Asian Americans to promote their continued engagement in variety of civic activities.