Ethnic and racial disparities in the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic raise significant
concerns. This study analyzes social media discourses toward four ethnic communities in the US
during the pandemic and reveals disparities in pandemic experiences among them. A total of
488,029 tweets mentioning one of four ethnic communities, i.e. Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and
Native Americans, were investigated by a structural topic modeling approach with emotional
expressions and time as covariates in the topic model. The results demonstrate that discourses
about Asian, Hispanics, and Native American communities were often induced by pandemic-
related events, concerning topics beyond one’s community, and reflecting an experience of implicit
racism and an adoption of technical supports from health systems. Meanwhile, discourses about
Blacks were racially-related, discussing topics within the community, and reflecting an experience
of explicit racism and an adoption of psychological supports from ingroup. We discuss the
implications of our findings on ethnic health disparities