Equal Justice Society Releases Report on Implicit Bias, Mind Science, Anti-Immigrant Racism and Xenophobia
Research and report funded by Minami Tamaki Yamauchi Kwok & Lee Foundation
OAKLAND, Calif. (Dec. 8, 2016) — The Equal Justice Society today released a report on how implicit bias, racial anxiety, and misuse of stereotypes factor into anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia.
Authored by Sara Campos and Katherine Spencer, the report details how implicit biases, stereotyping, and racial anxiety contribute to anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia.
The report covers the following topics: current and historical anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States; psychological biases, specifically implicit bias, stereotyping and racial anxiety, that influence anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia; psychological research connecting biases to anti-immigrant sentiment; examples of specific incidents and policies that could be influenced by these biases; and suggested messaging for advocates.
The report was funded by the Minami Tamaki Yamauchi Kwok & Lee (MTYKL) Foundation as part of its Immigrant Rights Initiative supporting organizations advancing and protecting the rights of our vulnerable immigrant communities.
“EJS is grateful to the board of the MTYKL Foundation for including us in its inaugural immigrant rights initiative cohort of grantees,” said EJS Legal Director Allison Elgart. “We look forward to sharing our research findings to help immigrant rights advocates and the social justice community develop new approaches to combating hate and intolerance.”
“EJS has heard truly horrifying stories of Latino and Muslim children who fear they will be exiled from this country due to their immigrant status or religion,” said Elgart. “These fears and anxieties arise from baseless anti-immigrant rhetoric that must be dispelled by informed research and social science.”
Katherine Spencer is a social/personality psychology doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the relationship between implicit bias and behavior, with special attention on the control of implicit bias.
Sara Campos is a writer, lawyer, and consultant specializing in immigration and refugee issues. A graduate of UCLA Law, she worked at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area where she directed the Asylum Program. She also worked as a Staff Attorney for the National Immigration Law Center and taught Refugee Law at Golden Gate University and University of San Francisco Law Schools.
The San Francisco-based MTYKL Foundation (http://mtykl.org) announced in February 2016 that it has awarded a total of $100,000 to nonprofit organizations involved in immigrant rights and advocacy. The foundation awarded $10,000 to ten nonprofit organizations, including the Equal Justice Society. The MTYKL Foundation was formed in 2014 by Dale Minami, Donald Tamaki, Brad Yamauchi, Minette Kwok, and Jack W. Lee.
