Digital Resistance to Asian-American Hate during COVID-19: Study of Photography and Art on Instagram

Introduction
In this research, I study the digital resistance to Asian American hate, isolation, alienation, and ‘othering’ visibilized during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 in the Global North. Specifically, I draw attention to the role of personal and artistic representations of Asian female bodies that perform both a resistance to hate, in the context of the pandemic, and an affirmation of ethnic and racial heritage and belonging of the self in North America. Through the engagement with #stopasianhate and #haterisavirus hashtags on Instagram, I uncover the rejection of historic and contemporary racial and gendered violence, harassment, xenophobia, and othering that emerges through visual activism and personal and artistic performativity online.
Anti-Asian Hate during the Pandemic
The global spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated hate crimes, and discriminatory acts against Asian Americans who have been “burdened with mounting anxieties and heightened racial tensions, microaggressions, verbal attacks, physical violence and harassment” (Gover et al 648). According to the Stop AAPI Hate campaign, more than 1700 anti-Asian hate crimes have been documented since the beginning of the pandemic (Jeung). Asian-Americans have been perceived as dangerous (Gover et al 648) owing to the racialized origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, and the “COVID-19 crisis has been misappropriated to reinforce racial discrimination and anti-immigrant rhetoric” (Devakumar et al.). Several incidents from “boycotting of Asian restaurants, bullying of Asian American children at school, to verbal and physical assaults of Asian Americans in public spaces” have been documented during the pandemic (748 - 749). Women and the elderly are most affected by this pervasive violence and the interlinkages between microaggressions and macro structures of power produced by colonialism and white supremacy. The recent mass shooting of six Asian women in Atlanta by Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white old man brought to the fore the risk of physical assault and battery that female Asian bodies carry. In this context, therefore, women have found a safe space on digital platforms to engage in discussions of racism, hate crimes, gendered violence, and participate in a process of sharing in order to subsequently de-‘otherize’ their own bodies and legitimize their belonging and cultural heritage through digital photography and art.
Method
I conducted this research using visual qualitative analysis of Instagram posts collected on the anti-Asian violence movement. I engaged specifically with #stopasianhate and #hateisavirus hashtags on Instagram using a critical feminist framework and decolonial visual praxis. Out of 535,924, and 51,671 posts yielded by #stopasianhate, and #hateisavirus respectively on Instagram, I manually selected 80 images that depict the self-representation of Asian women, as well as artistic designs for the movement made for/by Asian women in the Global North. To collect Instagram content on the #stopasianhate movement, I manually screenshotted Instagram posts to include the image. All original posts are in English and were collected in the timeline of seven months between April 1st and October 8th, 2021. Here, to understand the relationship between Asian American body politics and digital resistance, I examine various images that showcase the multiplicity of voices in Asian American bodies. With respect to artistic representations of Asian-ness during the pandemic, I investigate the work of multidisciplinary artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (@alonglastname) with her permission.
Argument
Out of the 80 images collected, 34 are exclusively characterized as photographs, self-portraits, or photoshoots that depict the defiance of female Asian American bodies, and the desire to reclaim public and private spaces through their ‘Asian-ness.’ I contend that digital resistance in photographic and personal representation emerges on Instagram in various ways including as resistance against Asian American hate, opposition to stereotypes of ‘Chinese-ness’ during the pandemic, navigation of personal identity, and through intergenerational memories of belonging and unbelonging. The process of appropriation, infiltration, and self-insertion of Asian American women on Instagram “combats racial oppression,” (Baer 19) produces dissent and disrupts dominant infrastructures. Their bodies emerge as the site of resistance and are constantly being reshaped and repurposed to define their identities and assert their belonging in the North. The visuality of their bodies online creates a counter-hegemonic space against normative hierarchies and power structures where they can produce an agency over and alternate interpretations of their own stories and perform resistance. Their corporeal presence on Instagram and engagement with the #stopasianhate hashtags on digital spaces underpins a sort of precarity, vulnerability, and comfort for these women (Sliwinska 9). The material reconfiguration of public and digital spaces, in fact, allows them to recenter their personal stories through the practice of vulnerable sharing. In this case, photography becomes a powerful medium of creating and disseminating narratives of violent and xenophobic othering.

With respect to artistic representations, Amanda’s art in both the physical spaces of New York City as well as on Instagram become a “ritualistic space for self-care and catharsis”; a space that implies ancestral protection; a place to heal as a community from personal grief and collective trauma derived from historical and violent oppression. She brings her artistic creations to life in order to connect with others who identify as Asian Americans while providing a space for community building. Her art performs reclamation of public space and begins the arduous process of re-centering the Asian American narratives. Therefore, visual activism through #stopasianhate, and #hateisavirus in the context of the pandemic, as well as the use of Asian American women’s personal and artistic imaginaries on Instagram is a veritable act of decolonization that emerges in the digital resistance of hate. A decolonial praxis in the form of anti-racist hashtags here illuminates the previously invisible narratives of the Asian American community and amplifies the voice of the racialized and gendered subject.

Bibliography
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  Devakumar, Delan, et al. “COVID-19: The Great Unequaliser.”
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Jeung, R. “Incidents of coronavirus discrimination march 26-April 1, 2020: A report for A3PCON and CAA.”
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Sliwinska, Basia.
Feminist Visual Activism and the Body. Routledge, 2021.