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Feb 19, 2021 1 min, 34 secs

A New York City principal said the families of many of her Asian American students have been fearful as heightened levels of anti-Asian sentiment continue alongside the coronavirus pandemic and with violence toward Asian Americans gaining more national attention.

The New York administrator, whose school has a Title I distinction — meaning it has a significant percentage of low-income students — said students' "fear is real even if they are two blocks away from school.".

"They're afraid of leaving the apartment and coming to class, because they might get mugged or hit," said the principal, whose school has a significant immigrant population.

Across the country, people of color, including Asian Americans, are disproportionately more likely to keep their students remote, research shows.

The New York principal said many families have already experienced harassment, making the fear all the more real.

Anxiety about such confrontations is so severe that the school is mailing supplies out "to the tune of hundreds and thousands of dollars by the end of this school year" because families are too frightened to pick up supplies, she said.

But many Asian American students, in New York City in particular, come from low-income families and may not have that privilege.

The New York administrator also said more low-income Asian American families have been firm in their decisions to keep their children remote.

The principal of a separate New York City school that has a large low-income, immigrant population said her students had similar fears.

She said the onus falls not solely on Asian Americans to lift themselves up when the are being targeted, but also on allies to point out racism

Wang said that because the education system largely erases the stories of Asian Americans, their struggles and their activism, adults and children often default to the prominent but false narratives about the group

"There's always an exclusion of Asian Americans in conversations about race," she said

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