Let’s be clear:

Yes, racists don’t care about Asian heterogeneity.

Yes, some Filipinos look/are East Asian.

Yes, some Filipinos have faced COVID-related racism.

Yes, we must fight racism.

But Filipinos’ racism experiences are NOT the same as EastAsians’.

Let’s look at data.

Data shows that Filipinos overall experience racism very differently than East Asians.

e.g.: Out of 673 COVID-related racism reported, only 4.2% were by Filipinos - one of the lowest among all ethnic groups.

Most COVID-related racism has been by Chinese (38%) & Koreans (16%).

In contrast, a survey that asked 4,393 AsianAms about 15 kinds of racism found that Filipinos matched/surpassed the AsianAm avg on 14 of them. The only type of racism that Filipinos don’t experience as much as the average AsianAm is “People assume you are good at math & science”.

27% of Filipinos report getting poorer service in restaurants or stores, the highest frequency among all Asian American groups.

21% of Filipinos report being called names or being insulted, pretty much every month. This is the highest frequency among all Asian American ethnic groups.

19% of Filipinos report that they’ve been unfairly denied promotion at their job, the highest frequency among all Asian American ethnic groups.

15% of Filipinos report being harassed or threatened pretty much every month, the highest rate among all Asian American groups.

Here’s how many of the 15 types of racism each group matched/surpassed the AsianAm avg:

Filipino=14
Indian=13
Bangladeshi=12
Hmong=11
Korean=7
Pakistani=7
Japanese=7
Cambodian=6
Chinese=2
Vietnamese=0

Conclusion: Filipinos don’t experience racism the same way as East Asians do.

So again:

Yes, some Filipinos look/are East Asian.

Yes, some Filipinos have faced COVID-related racism.

Yes, we must fight racism.

BUT the reality is Filipinos experience racism differently.

Racists may not give a f**k about heterogeneity, complexity, & nuance, but we must.