ANKARA

Hate incidents against Asian Americans in the US continue to climb despite political and social awareness campaigns, according to two new reports.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans rose 169% in the first quarter of 2021 from the same period of the previous year, said a report issued Thursday by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Most of the increase was seen in major US cities such as New York with a 223% jump, followed by San Francisco with 140% and Los Angeles with 80%.

"Larger cities with a higher percentage of Asian residents, hate crime units, victim outreach, and a lengthy history of data collection were those most likely show higher numerical and percentage increases," said Report to the Nation: Anti-Asian Prejudice & Hate Crime.

The number of Anti-Asian hate crimes reported to police in the 15 largest US cities totaled 86, according to the report, but the number is much higher when the entire country is taken into account.

The number of hate incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate almost doubled from 3,795 in March 2020 to 6,603 in March 2021, the nonprofit social group said Thursday.

"Chinese individuals have reported more hate incidents (43.7%) than other race or ethnic groups, followed by Koreans (16.6%), Filipinos (8.8%) and Vietnamese (8.3%)," it said.

Verbal harassment and shunning, the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, led total incidents reported with 65.2% and 18.1%, respectively. They were followed by physical assault with 12.6%.

The rise in Anti-Asian American hate incidents was first reported in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic started to spread across the US and then-President Donald Trump repeatedly called it "the Chinese virus,” a label decried by many observers as racist.