Anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise in America, and new data has revealed over the past year that the number of these incidents — which can include shunning, verbal harassment and physical attacks — is greater than previously reported. And a disproportionate number have been directed at Asian women, such as the recent Atlanta spa shootings and the assault on an elderly woman in San Francisco.
The research released by reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate on Tuesday revealed nearly 3,800 incidents were reported over the course of roughly a year during the pandemic. It’s a significantly higher number than last year's count of about 2,800 hate incidents nationwide over the span of five months. Women made up a far higher share of the reports, at 68 percent, compared to men, who made up 29 percent of respondents. The non-profit does not report incidents to police. The data, which includes incidents that occurred between March 19 of last year and Feb. 28 of this year, shows that roughly 503 incidents took place in 2021 alone. Verbal harassment and shunning were the most common types of discrimination, making up 68.1 percent and 20.5 percent of the reports respectively. The third most common category, physical assault, made up 11.1 percent of the total incidents. More than a third of incidents occurred at businesses, the primary site of discrimination, while a quarter took place in public streets. According to the data, Asian women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men. A further examination of the submitted reports showed that in many cases, the verbal harassment that women received reflected the very intersection of racism and sexism. March 16 – NBC News
If you’re a journalist covering this news story, then let us help. Dr. Krystyn Moon is an expert in U.S. immigration history, popular culture, race and ethnic studies – and is available to speak with media regarding the recent study and the history of the anti-Asian racism and violence in the United States.
If you are looking to arrange an interview, simply click on her icon now to book a time today.
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Biography
Krystyn Moon is a professor of History and American Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia where she is currently a Waple Faculty Fellow. Her teaching and research focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history, with a particular focus on northern Virginia and its African American and immigrant communities. She has worked on several public history projects, including “Finding the Fort: African American History and Memory at Fort Ward Historic Park,” a report on a historic neighborhood that Alexandria annexed from Fairfax County in 1952; “Immigrant Alexandria: Past, Present and Future,” an oral history project with post-1965-immigrants funded by Virginia Humanities; and “Documenting Exclusion and Resilience,” a website dedicated to recording racially restrictive covenants in Northern Virginia and the responses by various marginalized communities. Finally, she is the author of the forthcoming book, Proximity to Power: Rethinking Race and Place in Alexandria, Virginia, which will be published with UNC Press in spring 2025.
In addition to her public history work, Dr. Moon has researched Asian American history, popular culture, and foodways. This work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of American History, Gastronomica, History of Education Quarterly, and the Journal of Asian American Studies. The culmination of this work is her book, Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1860s-1920s (2005).
Areas of Expertise
Northern Virginia History
African American History
U.S. Immigration History
Public History
Asian American History
Popular Culture
Foodways
Accomplishments
Alexandria Historical Society Special Award (African American Waterfront Heritage Trail Committee)
2021
Ben Brenman Award for Archaeology (Fort Ward Interpretative Committee)
2019
UMW Summer Research Grant
2019
Carlton C. Qualey Memorial Article Award (IEHS)
2017
Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Award for ASA-JAAS
2016
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Grant with the Office of Historic Alexandria
2015
CAS Dean’s Faculty Grant
2012
Education
Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D.
History
2002
Johns Hopkins University
M.A.
History
1999
Pomona College
B.A.
American Studies
1997
Affiliations
Alexandria Historical Society: Past President, Executive Board
Southern Regional Chapter of the American Studies Association: Past President, Executive Board
American Studies Association-Japanese Association for American Studies Project: Co-Chair
African American Maritime Heritage Trail, Office of Historic Alexandria: Co-Chair
Nestled in the Cuban countryside is a community called La Picadora. It draws tourists from all over the world to learn about sustainable farming. University of Mary Washington Professor of History and American Studies Krystyn Moon says their sustainability practices were born out of economic crisis.
Fairfax County to review property deeds, remove discriminatory language
FFX Now online
2024-09-11
Recently, Lusk and Storck, along with county staff, attended a presentation by University of Mary Washington historian Krystyn Moon at Sherwood Hall Library in Hybla Valley, where she detailed the widespread use of racial covenants in neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, particularly in Hybla Valley and along the Richmond Highway corridor.
Racial land covenants helped shape residential segregation in Fairfax County over decades
Mount Vernon On the MoVe online
2024-09-06
Racial covenants — now-illegal restrictions on property deeds in many Northern Virginia subdivisions that limited ownership to Whites — are being uncovered in Mount Vernon District and elsewhere by Dr. Krystyn Moon, professor of history and American studies at the University of Mary Washington, and a team at Marymount University.
New research maps racially restrictive covenants around Alexandria
ALX Now online
2024-05-08
One of the lead researchers for Documenting Exclusion & Resilience project is Krystyn Moon, a University of Mary Washington historian who also wrote up a report last year for the City of Alexandria on racially restrictive covenants in Alexandria.
The News-Press set out to examine property deeds (stored in databases not in the city or nearby Arlington but at the Fairfax County Courthouse). But the work was already underway by a group of academics coordinated by Marymount University sociology professor Janine DeWitt, housing attorney Kristin Neun and University of Mary Washington professor of history and American studies Krystyn Moon.
The History of Race, Performance, and Drag Intersect in a Rare Photo of Thomas Dilward
Atlas Obscura online
2020-02-21
Professor of History and American Studies Krystyn Moon was interviewed for an article about Thomas Dilward, one of the first African American performers to tour with all-white minstrel troupes that otherwise excluded Black people.
Finding a Place to Call Home: Race and Place in Alexandria, Virginia
Equity in Preservation: Office of Historic Alexandria’s Preservation History Month Lecture Series - 2021
Alexandria Housing and Segregationist Practices
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church’s Exploring Systematic Racism Lecture Series - 2021
Race: How was Race Constructed through the Law in Virginia? (with Erin Devlin)
UMW Race and Reality Forum - 2020
Identification and Documentation Tools for African American Historic Places
Preservation Virginia - 2020
Two Racialized Regimes: Everyday Migrations between Virginia and Washington, DC, 1880s- 1920s
American Studies Association Annual Conference - 2019
From Arlandria to Chirilagua: The Remaking of a Northern Virginia Neighborhood, 1960s- 1980s
Episcopal High School’s Community Engagement Program - 2019
Immigration and Exclusion: The Chinese American Experience
UMW ElderStudy - 2019
Where Allies are Key: Student Discussions around American Immigration
Southern Regional Chapter of the American Studies Association Conference - 2019
Courses
HIST 132 - American History Since 1865
Reconstruction, the emergence of industrialism, the development of world power status through the World Wars, and post-1945 trends.
Articles
La Picadora: A Case Study in Cuban Agroecotourism
International Journal of Cuban Studies
2021
Agroecotourism is growing worldwide, with a Latin American focus on both cultural and environmental sustainability. In this case study, the authors immersed themselves in the seven-year-old agroecotourism venture of La picadora, living among neighbours and conducting formal interviews with 14 persons to learn about agricultural practices, hosting approaches, and the effects of tourism on life at La picadora. Results showed a community practising and committed to sustainable use of land and human resources, and revealed agricultural practices typical of broader Cuba.
Even before the founding of the City of Alexandria in 1749, Africans and their descendants, enslaved and free, have lived and worked along the waterfront, making significant contributions to the local economy and culture. In the 1820s, Alexandria became home to the largest domestic slave trading firm, which profited from the sale and trafficking of enslaved African Americans from the Chesapeake to the Deep South. The Civil War revolutionized social and economic relations, and newly freed African Americans found new job opportunities as a result of the waterfront’s industrialization.
A Chinese Slave in Alexandria? Melissa Ann Hussey’s Eclectic Trousseau
Alexandria Chronicle
2018
In 1857, Captain Samuel Bancroft Hussey purchased a three-story, red brick house (then standing at 617 South Washington Street) as a wedding gift for his only daughter, Melissa Ann Hussey, and her bridegroom, Robert Lewis Wood. The home had been vacant since 1853, when its builder, Reuben Roberts, had died and his widow moved to New Jersey. After a society wedding in New York, the couple returned to Alexandria to live in the home, located on the edge of town. Gay Montague Moore’s bicentennial history of Alexandria, Seaport in Virginia, profiles the Hussey property, including fascinating information about the objects that the bride brought with her from her travels abroad. Moore noted that Melissa Ann had “cages of cockatoos, parakeets, parrots, … a chimpanzee, and a small Chinese slave boy, bought by her father from one of the innumerable sampans in the harbor of Canton.
Asians and Asian Americans and the Performing Arts Prior to World War II
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature
2018
Performers of Asian ancestry worked in a variety of venues and media as part of the American entertainment industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some sang Tin Pan Alley numbers, while others performed light operatic works. Dancers appeared on the vaudeville stage, periodically in elaborate ensembles, while acrobats from China, India, and Japan wowed similar audiences. Asian immigrants also played musical instruments at community events. Finally, a small group lectured professionally on the Chautauqua Circuit.
Immigration Restrictions and International Education: Early Tensions in the Pacific Northwest, 1890s-1910s
History of Education Quarterly
2018
This essay explores the experiences and debates surrounding preparatory schools for Chinese students in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. These institutions attempted to expand educational opportunities for poorer Chinese students who might otherwise not have had a chance to go to school; however, most of these children also had families in the United States, who supported their children's education but also needed their children to work to sustain their families.
Recruited, Excluded, and (Sort of) Included: the Asian American Experience Seen through Short Films
Arlington County Teachers Workshop with 1882 Foundation and funded by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
2017
The Alexandria YWCA, Race, and Urban (and Ethnic) Revival: The Scottish Christmas Walk, 1960s–1970s
Journal of American Ethnic History
2016
Journal of American Ethnic History addresses various aspects of American immigration and ethnic history, including background of emigration, ethnic and racial groups, Native Americans, immigration policies, and the processes of acculturation. Each issue contains articles, review essays and single book reviews.
The African American Housing Crisis in Alexandria, Virginia, 1930s-1960s
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
2016
This article explores housing segregation in mid-twentieth-century Alexandria and the ways in which leaders used public policy to reconfigure local neighborhoods and promote the city as an ideal, white middle-class community. Starting in the late 1930s, it became apparent that African American residents had few decent housing options in Alexandria thanks to a housing shortage combined with racial segregation.
On a Temporary Basis: Immigration, Labor Unions, and the American Entertainment Industry, 1880s–1930s
Journal of American History
2012
This article explores the relationships among immigration law, organized labor, and the constructions of race and nationality in the experiences of foreign entertainers who were trying to enter the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. While entertainers came and went throughout this period, they also faced increasing regulation of their movements in part due to anxieties voiced by unions and nativists.
The Quest for Music’s Origin at the St. Louis World’s Fair: Frances Densmore and the Racialization of Music
American Music
2010
In this essay exploring Densmore’s research at the St. Louis World’s Fair we can see how evolutionary racism, American colonialism, and music scholarship intermingled at the beginning of the twentieth century.
