AAPI have always suffered the effects of white supremacy in America. Some of the first immigration restrictions in US history came about because of the influx of Chinese into the US, seeking opportunity after the devastating impact of the Opium wars with the UK. White Americans saw the influx of hard working Chinese immigrants as a danger. Here was a group that would never be able to fully integrate into “white” America. Exclusion of Chinese immigrants, and a campaign of racism was started. For those that remained in the US, the powers that be eventually would pit Chinese and Irish immigrants against each other in a rush to finish the transcontinental railroad. They were also used to form narratives against Blacks in America, and to set the “model minority” narrative.
https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/chinese-exclusion-act-1882
Let us never forget that when it suits white supremacists, we are depicted no differently than any other ethnic group. The same narratives used against the Chinese would later be used against Eastern European, and immigrants from Central and South America.
In times of war, the “model minority” AAPI groups are frequently targeted as an outlet for the ignorant. The worst example of this ignorant hatred is how Japanese Americans were treated by their government during WWII. Loyal Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up, their businesses and homes seized, and they were forced into camps. There was never any threat of “spies” among the Japanese Americans. Many of which loyally served in the military. Ignorance and fear mongering won the day.
George Takei’s family at an internment camp 
The Korean and Vietnam wars would avoid the internment of other AAPI, but the increase in hate rhetoric against AAPI groups would continue, well into the 1980s.
After 9/11 Muslim Americans also felt the brunt of ignorant racism and hatred. Their business and places of worship were targeted, and they lived in a state of fear, that continues to this day.
http://www.csun.edu/~sm60012/GRCS-Files/Muslims-post-9-11.htm
After COVID-19 reached US Shores, hatred and ignorance against Chinese Americans, and other East Asian AAPI groups again increased. Chinese businesses faced boycotts by the ignorant, and AAPI citizens have seen an exponential increase in hate crimes levied against them. From racial slurs, to dangerous chemicals being thrown at them, to murder, the cycle of ignorance and violence continues.
From the article“In April, a Brooklyn woman suffered severe burns after being doused with chemicals. Last month, 84-year-old Thai immigrant Vicha Ratanapakdee died in an assault in San Francisco. Noel Quintana, a 61-year-old Filipino man riding the New York subway this month, required about 100 stitches after being slashed with a box cutter. Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition documenting anti-Asian hate amid covid-19, has tracked more than 2,800 incidents of violence, harassment or discrimination between March and December 2020, many aimed at the elderly. Activists say the true numbers are surely higher.“
The question I hear often is “well AAPI are considered model minorities, you aren’t always targeted, and people have a generally positive opinion about AAPI groups”. This is still white supremacy at work. There is a narrative that AAPI groups are harder working or smarter than other BIPOC groups. This in itself is damaging, setting the stage for unrealistic expectations, and pitting AAPI groups against Black and Latin Americans.
The narrative is used against other groups in an attempt to attack Affirmative Action, a necessary policy that is used to try and bring equity to Blacks and other BIPOC groups after centuries of oppression and devastation.
AAPI groups are used as a tool, to incite fear and anger, when it suits a society build on white supremacy, or as a tool against other groups in an attempt to keep us permanently split. AAPI too often fall into a pattern of “anti-blackness” or “anti-Latino” that is damaging not just to those groups, but also to AAPI. It isolates us, and when we face overwhelming discrimination, we have no moral high ground from which to defend ourselves, and far fewer allies than we need to push back. It is high time AAPI groups deal with our own bigotry, and begin outreach to groups that know all to well the damaging effects of white supremacy.