These days, I wake up every morning to an influx of new infographics and reposts of racist incidents in my Instagram feed. The more Instagram stories I scroll through, the more overwhelmed I become.
I am disappointed and frustrated, but I cannot say that I am surprised. Anti-Asian hate has been present well before the pandemic. Since the first few Covid-19 cases emerged in China, anti-Asian sentiment has grown increasingly common. In fact, our own president fueled this sentiment by blaming the Covid-19 outbreak on China and shamelessly employing sinophobic rhetoric in front of his national audience. When racially charged words like “Kung flu” and “China virus” are normalized, violence and crime will naturally follow. We all saw this coming, yet no one took it to heart until lives were threatened and blood was shed. In my eyes, this year of hate crimes is simply a culmination of years of normalized microaggressions and discrimination against Asians.
Reading the profiles of the victims of the Atlanta spa shooting left me shattered. Some of the victims were mothers, with thin jet black hair, dark brown eyes and glowing, milky skin just like my mother’s. Those East Asian women shared the same surnames as my closest family and friends. As I read through Randy Park’s Instagram post about his mother that he lost, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. That was when everything really sank in. In another life, I could have been born as one of their children. It could have been my mom that day.
I had never seen something in the media that felt so real and personal to me.
Among other countless crimes, I was especially shocked watching footage of elderly Asians being beat up and pushed in Oakland’s Chinatown. Jumping an elderly person is one of the most rotten acts imaginable, especially when our culture is one that places importance on respecting and taking care of elders. I find it outrageous that anyone could conscientiously make the decision to disapprove of or hate someone else that they do not know simply because of their ethnicity and skin color.
In a conversation with my father one day, he said to me, concerned, “I did not sacrifice everything and leave my home behind to come to the United States for this.” My parents and millions of Asian immigrants all arrived here for a fresh start, a better life for themselves and their children. My family and I should not have to feel so vulnerable and jeopardized just because of another’s ignorance. None of us came here to feel threatened by news headlines or have racial slurs hurled at us on the streets. We did nothing to deserve this.
It was not until the recent spike in anti-Asian hate that I began to realize how fortunate I am to be living in a largely Asian-populated community where most of my friends share the same background as me and understand my experiences. Still, despite growing up in a town that is relatively sheltered from discrimination, I too have bore the brunt of racist, derogatory comments. As the situation for the Asian community has grown more serious, I can no longer laugh them off and pretend that such language or actions are acceptable.
Although there is much more progress to be made, I see hope in the fact that there has been greater coverage in the news, and many allies are becoming aware and showing their solidarity for the Asian community. People are choosing to be less tolerant of offensive words and actions towards Asians, and are instead promoting love and support from all corners of the world. At the end of the day, we all belong to one human race. It is now more important than ever to put our differences aside and join hands to work on moving forward united.