Why South Asian Hate Feels Different This Time
It’s louder, more visible, and more accepted than ever before. Experts chime in on what’s fueling its meteoric rise.
In October 2024, a woman told off Ashwin Annamalai in Waterloo. “You’re not Canadian,” she insisted. Annamalai asked what he had done wrong. “I’m being aggressive to you because too many Indians are in Canada, and I want you to go back.”
Annamalai recorded the interaction, noting the “disturbing rise in hate.” Last month, a plane headed to Qatar had to make an emergency landing in Mumbai, and netizens couldn’t imagine anything worse. “[You’re] a lot safer on a plane than on the ground,” one comment read. And after bodycam footage of an Indian woman caught shoplifting went viral, one commenter wrote: “Your entire country is an embarrassment.”
None of this is surprising: many have noticed an uptick in anti-South Asian sentiment on social media and in real life. In Canada alone, hate crimes against South Asians rose by 227% between 2019 and 2023. In the U.S., over 50% of South Asians experienced a hate act in 2024. South Asians have lived through the Bellingham riots in the 1900s, 9/11, and much more. But this time feels different.