Materially, that looks like Asian American mutual aid networks – support systems for Asian Americans that create forums to uplift one another while also collectively mobilizing

Mutual aid happens when members of a minority, primarily the Asian American community, join to meet each other's needs, with the common understanding that the institutions in which they live are failing to meet their needs. Mutual aid is a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable (Brigade, 2019). The framework of mutual aid is significant in social movements resisting capitalist and colonial domination, in which wealth and resources are extracted and concentrated and most people can survive only by participating in various extractive relationships. Providing for one another through coordinated collective care is radical and generative (Spade, 2020). It is important to underline that mutual aid is not charity, but it is the formation and maintenance of new social connections in which individuals give what they can and get what they need outside of unjust power systems. ¶ The framework of mutual aid is significant in social movements resisting inequalities. Providing for one another through coordinated collective care is radical and generative. Effective social movements always include elements of mutual aid (Spade, 2020). The most famous example on the left in the United States is the Black Panther Party’s survival programs, including the free breakfast program, the free ambulance program, free medical clinics, a program offering rides to elderly people doing errands, and a school aimed at providing a liberating and rigorous curriculum to children (Collier, 2015). ¶ Mutual Aid Work in Asian American Communities ¶ The existence of community-based organizations in Asian American communities is crucial to meet their needs, especially during the pandemic, when minorities were left behind. However, the underlying principle of early voluntary associations is that communities should help their members. These organizations were typically started by volunteer laypeople and based on the special interests, trades, and needs of their members. Racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, in particular, relied on these organizations for financial, spiritual, and emotional support (Gamm & Putnam, 1999). As a minority in the United States, the Asian American community established community-based organizations from the mid to the late 1800s to have a sense of belonging to something in common with other people who share their cultural perspectives. ¶ Ethnic community-based organizations have since developed to provide human services, but they still keep the same values and spirit as their predecessors. Usually, in the communities they serve, ethnic community-based organizations are often familiar with the obstacles and needs of service users and typically sponsor a variety of events and activities to promote community building and social support (Holley, 2003). As a result, ethnic CBOs can provide services that respond to the needs of minority populations in a supportive community setting, especially for new immigrants from Asia (Chow, 1999). As a result, ethnic community-based organizations can provide services that are sensitive to the needs of minority communities in a supportive community context, particularly for the Asian American community. However, scholars argue organizations can help with assimilation. ¶ Mutual Aid during COVID-19 ¶ While collaboration is one form of how these organizations provide services, sometimes community organizations independently provide it. For example, between March and June 2020, residents in north London faced the Covid-19 pandemic by creating neighborhood Mutual Aid groups on WhatsApp and Facebook. These groups not only addressed basic survival needs such as bringing groceries and medicines to infected people, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations in quarantine; they also offered opportunities for social interactions between strangers living in the same neighborhood during the lockdown. Their success was linked to their rapid mobilization, adaptability, and local knowledge. Their bottom-up organization, based on the principle ‘Solidarity not Charity’, showed a singular way to express dissent with policy response to the pandemic and brought them closer to the horizontal social movements of the 2010s (Chevee, 2021). ¶ During the Covid-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, the support provided by mutual aid groups has included shopping, collecting prescriptions, providing meals, dog-walking, informational and emotional support, and involvement in running food banks (Solnit, 2020). Their flexibility and local connections meant they were better suited to play this role than centralized or official bodies (Tiratelli & Kaye, 2020). As of May 2021, there were at least 4317 mutual aid groups operating in the United Kingdom (Covid-19 Mutual Aid UK, 2021). However, the existing power dynamic between helper and helped was reinforced along racial lines, a dynamic which resonates particularly given the wider context of the UK Covid-19 mutual aid movement; research shows that membership in Covid-19 mutual aid groups was overwhelmingly white and middle-class (O'Dwyer, 2020), while the virus itself disproportionately affected on lower-income and minority ethnic groups (Public Health England, 2020). ¶ Disease threat often gives rise to discrimination and scapegoating of “others,” for example, foreigners, immigrants, and marginalized groups. In the pandemic brought on by COVID-19, it is not just Chinese immigrants, but any Asian American perceived as having connections to China (e.g., some Southeast Asians and other East Asians) because of false stereotypes that Asians are “look-alike” and anti-Asian/Chinese sentiment (e.g., the “yellow peril” stereotype as discussed later), have become potential targets (Tessler, Choi, & Kao, 2020). While establishing relationships with other marginalized racial groups and the Asian American community as large may not be limited to a few Chinese and Vietnamese Americans, it is unlikely to limit solidarity among most members of these communities. To strengthen emotions of solidarity among Asian ethnics and other racial minority populations, it is critical to identify strategies to foster a sense of connected fate among Asians, Blacks, and Latinx, which improves both intra and inter-racial solidarity (Nicholson, Carter, & Restar, 2020; Sanchez & Masuoka, 2010). ¶ In particular, members of minority ethnic groups may feel marginalized, creating barriers to engagement with healthcare or other services (Public Health England, 2020). In the present case, that the interaction took place in what appeared to be a racist area stressed both the power dynamic between “helper” and “helped,” and the participant's self-perception as being from a potentially hostile outgroup in the eyes of the recipient, creating an uncomfortable feeling of intrusion (Mao, et, 2021). Asian American communities continue to engage in mutual aid work through the pandemic, given this long history within the community.