Child Trends Statement Condemning Anti-AAPI Violence

Child Trends stands in solidarity with our Asian and Asian American/Pacific Islander colleagues, family members, friends, and community members. We abhor the violence and racism directed at them.

Anti-Asian hate crimes, harassment, and discrimination have been on an alarming upward trajectory since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they are not new. The murders of Asian-American women in Atlanta are a horrifying legacy of centuries of anti-Asian policies, practices, and prejudice. They are also a reminder that White supremacy and misogyny are a danger to all of us and to our democracy itself.

No child, youth, or family should live under the threat of violence. At Child Trends, we challenge a status quo that allows this to happen. Our rigorous research includes examinations of systemic racism and the trauma that it causes for children and youth, as well as the identification of ways to prevent and heal that trauma. In sadness for the lives lost to racist violence, we recommit to the critical work of building a world free of oppression, in which all children can thrive.