1. I emigrated after university - I grew up in Massachusetts and Vermont and was in High School when 9/11 happened if you're curious how that gels with my previous comment.
2. Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/vancoucer-anti...
3. Linked police report https://vancouverpoliceboard.ca/police/policeboard/agenda/20...
That's remarkably higher than the average increase.
The most legitimate response you could hope to get to such a question is some anecdotal evidence.
The reporting of harassment and hate crimes usually involve the aggressor’s statements at the time of the occurrence, thus it is perfectly possible to link a physical or verbal attack to a motivation.
There isn’t a concerted effort anywhere to stop the debate about the lab leak hypothesis, and proof of it is the widespread coverage in media, from MIT review to NYT.
There is though a more unified push of such hypothesis made by right-wing outlets, like this one, FOX, or NYP, among others. And, if anything, that should give us pause, as this is more about shaping public opinion than informing.
I'm asking the following as seriously and as respectfully as I possibly can, and let it be known that I abhor all crime.
Was this anti-Asian hate crime story ever real, or was it a media narrative designed to bash Trump?
Just to play Devil's Advocate: what if crime rates in cities where many Asians tend to live are going up in general? How would you be able to distinguish between anti-Asian hate crimes increasing, and crime in general increasing? Is the rate of crimes against Asians going up relative to the rate of crimes against say Latinos or Whites or Blacks? Is the rate of crimes against Asians increasing more or less in say Red regions that might tend to be influenced by Trump's rhetoric versus Blue regions that might be less likely to tend to listen to his rhetoric? Has the media even bothered to ask this question and analyze the data, or were they quick to instantly rush to blame Trump for any Asian that was a victim of a random crime in order to score political points.
I don't know myself as it requires a lot more research than I can do right now, but what I can see as factual is that there are probably hundreds of stories about crime going up in the last couple of years for every big city.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/major-crimes-up-38-in-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/new-york-rising-c...
https://gothamist.com/news/why-are-shootings-and-murders-ris...
Just my 2 cents. The data might not indicate what the media says it does and I would say that we should recheck all of our initial premises about the last 6 years.