The Model Minority Victim: Professor Elaine Chiu’s Legal Critique of Anti-Asian Hate

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as headlines reported a spike in anti-Asian violence across the United States, legal scholar and former prosecutor Elaine Chiu found herself asking a question that few others were: was the criminal legal system actually helping Asian American victims? Her article, published in the Santa Clara Law Review in June 2025, The Model Minority Victim, emerges from this inquiry with a sobering answer. Drawing on a first-of-its-kind empirical database built by the Anti-Asian Violence Task Force (AAVTF)—a joint project of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) and the Asian American Law Fund of New York (AALFNY)—Professor Chiu followed 276 reported anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City in 2021, tracking each case from the initial police response to prosecution and sentencing. Of those cases, only 25 resulted in hate crime convictions.

Beyond its grim statistics, Professor Chiu’s article offers a powerful critique of the structural and cultural forces that render the law ineffective when it comes to anti-Asian violence. She argues that outdated hate crime statutes, high evidentiary burdens for proving motive, and deeply embedded racial stereotypes, particularly the “model minority” myth, all contribute to a system that routinely fails to see Asian Americans as worthy victims of racism. The result, she argues, is a legal system that fails to protect Asian American victims and actively reinforces racial hierarchies.

Professor Chiu has a long-standing history of leadership in the legal field. In recognition of her leadership, AABANY honored Professor Chiu with their Women’s Leadership Award in 2025, presented during the AABANY Annual Dinner, held on May 29, recognizing her illustrious career and community service, including her work with AAVTF and her role in publishing the landmark report, Endless Tide: The Continuous Struggle to Overcome Anti-Asian Hate in New York. In her acceptance speech, Professor Chiu acknowledged the profound connection between law and identity: “The law feeds and nourishes our families, but it also feeds and nourishes our beliefs about humanity, our country, and our identity as Americans.” Reflecting on her formative years and career, she spoke about her enduring desire to help people, firmly placing her hope in the rule of law. She urged the audience to hold onto that hope and to “show up, stand up, and speak up.”

Building on her belief in the interconnectedness of the law and identity, Professor Chiu’s article is grounded in her experience as a former Assistant District Attorney. When asked how her background as a former ADA and legal scholar shaped her approach, she replied, “I always knew there was a whole other story of what could happen after an arrest.” While the police often serve as the first responders, the prosecutors are the ones who shape the legal narrative. Lawyers, she noted, are uniquely positioned to “chase the string on every case,” following each story beyond the moment of arrest to ultimately deliver justice.

Together with the AAVTF, Professor Chiu advocates for reform. She supports revising hate crime laws to clarify the types of evidence that can support a bias motivation and calls for improved training so that the police and lawyers can better recognize and pursue racially motivated violence. But she also acknowledges the limits of legal reform alone. Cultural narratives, too, must shift. Stereotypes that dehumanize Asian Americans, even in their most vulnerable moments, must be actively rejected.

The creation of the AAVTF itself speaks to this dual mission of legal and cultural change. Founded in 2021, the Task Force emerged out of a collective urgency to respond to the rising tide of violence and was designed to “cover the now,” as Professor Chiu explains. While the hope was that the AAVTF would someday no longer be needed, Professor Chiu remains steadfast in her desire for the surge in Asian American advocacy not to fade into silence. “It was electric,” she says, remembering the activism that rose alongside the hate. “I hope it doesn’t [go quiet].”

In The Model Minority Victim, Professor Chiu offers more than a critique of the criminal legal system. She gives us a way to see—to understand how and why justice fails, and what must change to ensure it doesn’t continue. The article is a reminder that legal reform, if it is to be meaningful, must be paired with a broader reimagining of whose pain the system recognizes, whose voices it validates, and whose lives it protects.

If you are interested in reading the full article, Chiu, Elaine M., The Model Minority Victim, 65 Santa Clara L. Rev. 451 (2025), you can find it here.

Federal Judicial Internships Available

The Honorable Dora L. Irizarry, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, is accepting applications for Fall 2025 internships.

Qualifications:

  • Must be a rising second or third year law student.
  • Must have good grades.
  • Must have good research, writing, and analytical skills, although participation in Law Review or a Journal is not a prerequisite.
  • Military and/or other life/career experience is a plus.

Interested law students should forward their application package in PDF format as a single document via email to irizarry_chambers@nyed.uscourts.gov.

Application package must include:

  • One-page cover letter briefly describing why you are interested in a
    legal career and why you are interested in an internship with Judge Irizarry specifically.
  • Resume.
  • Official law school transcript.
  • One recent writing sample no longer than 10 pages, double spaced. Journal or research articles will not be accepted.
  • Two to three letters of recommendation.

The deadline for receipt of materials is August 1, 2025.

Please note that, while these are not paid internships, the Judge will participate in any appropriate sponsored program that provides academic credit or stipends for interns.

If you have questions, please contact chambers at: 718-613-2150.

Call for Research Participants: Professor Eun-Ok Im Seeking Asian American Breast Cancer Survivors for Study

Professor Eun-Ok Im, Ph.D., MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN, and her colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin are conducting a research study on “Cancer Pain Management: A Technology-based Intervention for Asian American Breast Cancer Survivors.” 

Currently, the team is in the process of recruiting participants to enroll in the study. They are looking for Asian American women aged 18 years and older who has had a breast cancer diagnosis in the past; can read and write English, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, or Japanese; has access to the Internet; and identifies their sub-ethnicity as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. 

Eligible participants who agree to join the study will be randomly assigned to two groups using the educational information or the online forum and 1:1 coaching/support program for three months. Participants will be asked to complete a questionnaire three times. Each participant will receive $ 50 reimbursement after each questionnaire. Thus, each participant can get up to $150 reimbursement upon completing the program.

For any questions, please contact the email address provided in the flyer. Please see below for translated flyers in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

AABANY Members: Please Complete Survey for CUNY Graduate Center Research Study on Second-Generation Chinese Americans

AABANY members have been invited to participate in a CUNY Graduate Center research study on second-generation Chinese Americans and their attitudes towards ethnic identity and New York City’s Chinatowns. If you identify as a child of Chinese immigrants, are between the ages of 18-35, and currently live in New York City, you are invited to take a 15-minute survey. You are also welcome to share this survey with any personal contacts who fit these criteria. The survey closes July 15. If you have any questions, please reach out to Annie Wang at awang3@gradcenter.cuny.edu.  

Survey link: https://bit.ly/chinatownsnyc    

AABANY Releases Second Report on Anti-Asian Hate and Violence in New York

On May 31, 2022, AABANY released its second report on anti-Asian hate and violence in New York City, entitled Endless Tide: The Continuing Struggle to Overcome Anti-Asian Hate in New York. The report examines the increased incidents of violence against Asian Americans in 2021 and proposes solutions to combat the lack of justice. Endless Tide is dedicated to the memory of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American autoworker murdered 40 years ago in an act of racial violence outside of Detroit. 

AABANY held a press conference on the morning of May 31 at the offices of Paul, Weiss in midtown Manhattan. Remarks were delivered by Eva Zhao, the widow of Zhiwen Yan, the delivery worker who was murdered in Forest Hills. 

“I want justice.” said Eva Zhao. “I really don’t want to see another family go through the same kind of pain.” 

(On June 1, Glenn Hirsch was arrested on charges of murdering Zhiwen Yan.)

AABANY was also joined by numerous elected officials and community leaders including Council Member Sandra Ung, State Senator John Liu, Assembly Member Ron Kim, Partner at Paul, Weiss and former United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Regional Director New York/New Jersey for the ADL Scott Richman.

“We can make people safe, We can make people feel welcomed in their communities. We can give them peace and security.” Loretta Lynch noted. “We can eliminate this hate that is based on nothing more than a distinction without a difference.” 

Endless Tide has received widespread coverage in the media since its release. The report has been cited by more than a dozen different publications to date, including CNN, CBS News, NBC News, and the New York Law Journal: 

AABANY thanks everyone who made this project possible. Special thanks to NAPABA for selecting AABANY as a recipient of its 2022 Affiliate Grant Program. The NAPABA Affiliate Grant Program supports affiliates and national associates in carrying out activities to further their missions and goals. To read the full report, please click on the image above. To view the press conference, please click here

Join AABANY in Supporting Portrait Project 2.0

A recent Law360 article entitled “Why Are Law Clerks So White” reported:

Take any five federal law clerks, and at least four of them would probably be white. And nobody can be certain why.

California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu has some guesses about the reasons black, Asian and Latino lawyers are largely shut out of these prestigious positions that can turbocharge a lawyer’s early career. But he says it’s impossible to pinpoint reasons or patterns because so little data exists.

“We actually don’t even know the most basic things about those opportunities,” Justice Liu told Law360. “It would be interesting if we could know even basic things, like do women judges get more women clerks? We have impressions of that, but we don’t know with any precision whether these things are true.”

The article went on to talk about how Justice Liu plans to address these questions in Portrait Project 2.0. AABANY is supporting this research as a Silver Sponsor. AABANY challenges its members to donate to Portrait Project 2.0. AABANY will match member donations up to $5,000. Join AABANY in advancing the work of Portrait Project 2.0. Read more at https://www.aabany.org/page/PortraitProject20

To read the full Law360 article go to https://www.law360.com/articles/1156019?utm_source=ios-shared&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=ios-shared

AAARI.info – Asian/Asian American Research Institute

AAARI.info – Asian/Asian American Research Institute

AAARI/CUNY invites you to Evening Lecture Series Talk, The Power of Listening: Hearing Voiceless Voices

The Asian American / Asian Research Institute invites you to an Evening Lecture Series talk, The Power of Listening: Hearing Voiceless Voices, by Rev. Dr. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, on Friday, March 14, 2014, from 6pm to 8pm, at 25 West 43rd Street, 10th Floor, Room 1000, between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan. This talk is free and open to the general public. 

Rev. Dr. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki believes that Asian values such as “listening” are as valuable as the western values of “talking."  "Express yourself” seems to be the way of Western society, but this tends to create a more selfish society with little respect for others, and inattention towards people who don’t express themselves strongly. Rev. Nakagaki will discuss the need to develop more mutual-understanding and mutual-respect among different cultures, religions and ethnicity, through listening and learning from others. Listening is the way to respect and learn from others. This nurtures kindness and compassion towards others who are also members of society. 

Rev. Dr. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, D. Min. is a Buddhist priest, ordained in the 750-year-old Jodoshinshu tradition of Japanese Buddhism. He is President of the Buddhist Council of New York, a Vice President of The Interfaith Center of New York, Clergy-on-Call for Columbia University, Community Clergy Liason for the NYC Police Dept., and Religious Advisor to the Japanese-American Lions Club. 

Since 1994, Rev. Nakagaki has organized an Interfaith Peace event to commemorate the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. He organized the annual 9-11 WTC Memorial Floating Lanterns Ceremony from 2002-2011. Rev. Nakagaki is also the author of two books in Japanese: “No Worry, No Hurry, Eat Curry: New York Bozu Indo o Aruku” (A Buddhist Monk Walks in India, published by Gendai Shokan, 2003) and “Manhattan Bozu Tsurezure Nikki” (Diary of Manhattan Monk, published by Gendai Shokan, June 2010).

To RSVP for this talk, please visit www.aaari.info/14-03-14Nakagaki.htm. Please be prepared to present ID to the security desk upon entering the building. If you are unable to attend, live webcast of the talk is available on the AAARI website starting at 6:15PM EST, with post-live video and audio podcast the following week.

For details on all of AAARI’s upcoming events, please visit www.aaari.info