By Kaysie Liang '20
The novel coronavirus is NOT an excuse to be racist. In light of the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been an increase in outbreaks of racism all over the world. On February 19th an elderly Chinese man was assaulted in San Francisco while collecting cans. February 23rd, a woman in San Francisco's Chinatown was robbed and assaulted in broad daylight. February 24th, a Singaporean student was brutally attacked by a group of people for “spreading coronavirus” in London. February 27th, a young Asian man and woman were assaulted on a Philadelphia subway. March 1st, a man in NYC had a bucket of water thrown at him because “he has coronavirus”. March 5th, an Asian man was harassed on NYC train by a man spraying febreeze and demanding he move. March 7th, Vietnamese students were bullied and harassed at their high school in Little Saigon in Orange County, California. March 8th, Li Qianyang, 48, was walking along the street in Brooklyn when an unidentified masked assailant chased him and stabbed him 13 times and left for dead. March 10th, images of Belgian school, Sin-Paulus Campus College Waregem, posted a picture on social media of their students dressed in stereotypical Asian clothing holding a sign that reads “Corona Time” (their school motto: “help young people grow into wise people: respectful, responsible, committed and social”). On March 12th it was reported to ABC7 news that a Korean student was punched in the face in Midtown Manhattan for not wearing a face mask. These are not the only incidents to occur, but they are some of the most prominent at the time of this article being written. The FBI predicted that here will probably be at least 100 more hate crimes committed against Asian Americans. There have been many cases of violence towards Asians through social media, with even a now deleted instagram page called @antiasiansclubnyc threatening a mass shooting of any Asians they see on sight in Chinatown NYC because this is “the only way we can destroy the epidemic of coronavirus in NYC.”
So while the majority of people are most likely worried about getting the virus and potentially endangering loved ones who are susceptible to critical conditions, Asians around the world have an added layer of fear of simply being outside because of who they are: because they are Asian. To get a better understanding of people’s fears I asked anyone with a statement to tell me how they feel. “I’m paranoid that I’m going to be violated for existing on the subway,” stated Sylvie Dyre ‘20. Sylvie continued to say,“I feel like the racism that has stirred up by the racism towards Asians is NEVER discussed. I feel like there’s a lot of Asian racism that no one cares about.”
Another student Anna Li ‘20 responded with, “It’s frustrating. Getting on the train was something I’d never thought I’d feel uncomfortable about. There was one instance where no one would sit in the empty seat next to me despite the train being packed.”
“Sometimes when I notice people giving me strange looks on the subway,” stated Cheryl Liu ‘20, “I’ll stand in front of them and pretend to cough or sneeze. Most of the time at least one person will move.”
Daisy Huang ‘20 told me about a recent experience: “I was standing at the curb and I saw a man standing behind me waiting for the light to change. I turned around just to get a better look at who it is out of curiosity, and the person took a step back. I thought ‘maybe it was a coincidence’ or maybe it’s because they saw I was Asian.”
“In health class, Mr. Cinquegrana was talking about the flu and coronavirus.” recounted Ariel Cthwe ‘22. “Someone questioned how it came from animals to people and someone in the class had said, ‘Are you kidding? They (Chinese people) eat everything.”
I was even provided experiences from students outside of NEST+m. Former NEST+m student, current Bronx Science student Estee Yi ‘20, Korean American, told me about her experience from a few weeks ago at the time of writing this. “My friend and I were on the 4 train. I was talking to her and immediately saw her face change. She looked upset and disappointed, and frankly, slightly disgusted. I asked her what happened because I noticed something was wrong, and she gestured towards a lady who covered her face with a scarf and was holding the pole with a single red leather glove on her hand. Apparently, when I wasn’t looking, this woman got onto the train, looked at us, and immediately pulled up her scarf and put on a glove. She saw two Asian girls on a train, connected dots (incorrectly I might add) and acted as if we would give her coronavirus. This was BEFORE it was announced as a pandemic and way before it worsened.”
The most obvious thing I feel I should mention is that this is not a surprise. There was no way that the coronavirus was NOT going to reach America. Asia was dealing with the virus five months ago, and had reached Europe by January. So why did no one think it was going to ignore us? And what do people accomplish by blaming all Asians in existence for causing the spread of the virus? Because, I hate to break it to you, there are 1.7 billion East Asian people in the world alone; that is 22% of the world’s population! So if every single Asian person in the world was a carrier of Covid-19 since the beginning of the outbreak, everyone would’ve been screwed in December. As of the 2016 census, there are nearly 21 million Asian Americans in the United States with the largest ethnic groups being Chinese American, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, and Japanese Americans; many of these ethnicities being East and Southeast Asian but also mistaken for each other due similar feature they share.
“Before the incident, I never thought this would happen to me, but then I remember that this kind of stuff happens with black and hispanic people a lot more frequently and puts things into perspective.” Estee told me. “It just goes to show that the smallest changes can trigger racism and xenophobia, even if there are no grounds for it. Asians are called ‘model minority’ but as soon as something about disease comes up, we’re dirty and gross.” “I think that the COVID-19 is a warning to us about how we treat nature and each other.” said Yaying “Ariel” Zheng ‘20. “Everything is connected. Choose empathy over fear and discrimination. Choose alertness, not panic.”
At this point in time, schools have been closed and if we go back I don’t know how relevant this article may be, but according to NextShark, and Asian and Asian American news outlet the relay information all things related to the Asian community, the FBI has predicted that there will be a huge increase of Asian American hate crimes, even New York creating a hotline for Asian Americans to report hate crimes. Many non-Asian people see this as unfair to other minority groups with comments such as, “Asians discriminate against us, where is our hotline?”, “Why just Asians? There’s racism happening towards other races DAILY. What makes Asian so special?”, “I get discriminated against by Asians, where’s my hotline.” But what people fail to realize is that no one is denying your suffering existing. No one is saying that other’s discrimination is wrong. But as one comment on the matter put it, “WE are in the middle of GLOBAL pandemic… This is not the time for [the] Oppression Olympics.” The biggest thing I feel I need to repeat is that the people that are victim to these attacks are innocent. Many elderly Asian people, young Asian women, and Asian teens. People who are not even from China, have never been to China, or who are not ethnically Chinese are grouped in the attack; not that it’s any better to attack a Chinese person for simply existing. There are Asians in almost every part of the world, and the only safe place for them to not be ridiculed for being Asian is Asia. There are people who are in these parts of the world who are terrified to leave their house to get groceries for fear of what might happen to them, because they are Asian. There has been a significant increase in Asian American gun ownership as well in California, due to the amount of hate crimes taking place there with many fearing personal safety and many most likely never having had a gun before this year.
At NEST+m’s Asian Culture Club, we held a discussion the week before schools were announced to be closed. In the meeting we talked about the Coronavirus and the impact we felt was being made for the member’s personally and for the community in all. One of the members stated something that is true for almost any situation, even before the Covid-19 outbreak: Asian people don’t speak up. We choose to stay silent and wait out our problems because they are “bothersome” and “uncomfortable” to talk about. We are willing to confide in each other, but not to others because we are the “model minority” and people will say that “Asians don’t have it as bad” or that we’re “second in social hierarchy under white people” so we have no right to complain about our struggles. We decided not to push our problems onto others, but this time it is too much to ignore because it is everywhere. The thing more contagious than the coronavirus: racism.
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