We Need to Stand Up Against Asian Hate Crimes
BY KCY
Growing up in San Francisco Chinatown, I always longed to look like one of them, but I never did because I was half Chinese.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the first time in my life I’m relieved to NOT look Asian.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the quiet racism against Asians in this country. From the dirty looks my Asian husband gets when he coughs, to the calls by people for Asians to “go back to your country” to COVID-19 being called the “China flu” by a former president, this quiet racism is now becoming a loud roar.
Asians have always been the good minority. We are hardworking, passive, unassuming. We follow the rules, do what people say and stick to ourselves. We continue working without any complaints even if we deserved that promotion we were passed on for by someone who was louder but less qualified. We smile weakly when someone makes fun of our squinty eyes. We quietly endure because that’s what we were taught. To be respectful even if someone is not being respectful towards us. To turn the other cheek. To lower our eyes and sit silently.
When I was in sixth grade, I went to a sleepaway camp with a large church fellowship group ranging from sixth grade to twelfth grade. Pretty much everyone in my fellowship group was Asian. We weren’t the only group there as this camp could have its cabins rented by different groups at a time. One afternoon, the sixth, seventh and eighth grade girls and boys in my fellowship went to the swimming pool. The bigger high schoolers were away on a kayaking trip. Another group was already in the swimming pool. As soon as we got into the pool, those boys and girls began to taunt my friends. “Chink!” they yelled. “Get out of the water, you’re polluting it!” We froze. Then the kicking started. And the shoving. “Chinks!” they yelled, even at me. “Get out!” My friends and I looked at each other and tried to scramble out of the pool as they yelled racial slurs to us while kicking us. Being in sixth grade, we did what we were taught to do. We went to report this behavior to the authority figure in the pool area: the lifeguard. Mind you, she had seen the whole thing. After we told her what happened, she turned to the other camp and simply said, “don’t be lame, guys.” We left and told our fellowship directors who were Asian, too, after they returned from the kayaking trip. Although they were sorry it happened, the underlying message was that it was just something we had to accept and that they were not going to make any noise about it. This same church fellowship group continues to rent the cabins at that camp to this very day.
Shouldn’t they have stood up more for us, for them, for Asians? Absolutely. And it’s not to say they didn’t want to. It’s just not the way. This is yet another example of why we have been viewed as the obedient and cooperative minority.
My mother who is full Chinese and most certainly looks full Chinese who lives in the bay area told me yesterday she’s now afraid to go out. My mother, who moved alone from San Francisco to New York City, who lived in the Bronx, who has worked as a teacher at many of the toughest inner-city schools, is afraid to do her grocery shopping because she’s afraid she’s going to be attacked just because she’s Asian.
She doesn’t want to end up like the 91-year-old man who was attacked in Oakland’s Chinatown. She fears being left for dead like 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee who was on his morning walk in his neighborhood in San Francisco. For the first time, she wishes to look more like me: the non-Asian who is Asian.
This is not okay.
I’m happy that many of our prominent Asian activists and actors are using their platforms to bring awareness to the racism our people are experiencing and have been experiencing. I’m happy people are finally talking about the xenophobia Asians are experiencing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But let me tell you something, this racism has been bubbling under the surface for years, for decades, even longer. There was no COVID-19 when I was in sixth grade.
What COVID-19 did was it exposed this disdain and racist attitude some people have towards the good minority. It awoke their fear of us, like a sleeping dragon who is poked. It’s about time we stood up for ourselves. It’s about time we took control and took a stand. It’s about time we slay that dragon. We owe it to ourselves, our parents, our grandparents, our loved ones and friends to be quiet no more, before more of our people get hurt.
I want my mom to feel like she can go out again.