Asian Restaurants Lost Billions, in Revenue Due to Pandemic-Era, Racism, Study Says.<br />According to a recent study, a racially-driven stigma in the <br />first year of the pandemic cost Asian restaurants in the <br />United States an estimated $7.4 billion in revenue.<br />NBC reports that the study, published last week in <br />the journal 'Nature Human Behavior,' found that Asian restaurants lost 18.4% more than other restaurants in 2020.<br />Following the outbreak of the pandemic,<br />the U.S. saw numerous incidents of anti-Asian <br />racism from harassment to direct violence.<br />According to Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition founded in response to growing racism, nearly 11,500 incidents were recorded between March 2020 and March 2022. .<br />When you have something like folks <br />just choosing not to eat in a Chinese <br />restaurant, that is something that’s a lot <br />more subtle and under the surface, <br />but it’s also a lot more common, Masha Krupenkin, assistant professor of political <br />science at Boston College, via NBC.<br />According to the study's co-author, Masha Krupenkin, <br />the relationship between partisanship and human behavior <br />is one of the most important drivers of discrimination.<br />People tend to really strongly follow <br />cues from their party leaders. So Trump <br />setting an example and calling COVID<br />'the China virus' and really laying blame <br />on China, I think, was one of the key <br />drivers of the effects that we saw, <br />especially among Republicans, Masha Krupenkin, assistant professor of political <br />science at Boston College, via NBC.<br />According to Krupenkin, the report found that non-Chinese Asian restaurants had even less traffic than <br />Chinese restaurants amid the pandemic.<br />The team found that this spillover of consumer <br />discrimination was caused by most people not knowing <br />the difference between different Asian cuisines
