Bringing Light to Racism Towards Asians Amid the COVID-19 Crisis

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Asian citizens living in the United States are experiencing discrimination due to the recent globalization of COVID-19.

Unfriendly discrimination against Asians has been reported all over the world.

Many Asians living or studying in the United States have shared daily experiences of being discriminated against on several social networking sites since the epidemic in Wuhan began to spread.

An example of this was when, Chen Chen, a Taiwanese female student, mentioned in the Taiwanese Student Facebook Association that when she took the subway in New York at the end of last month, the ticket inspector told her, “You are sick, stay away from me.”

This blatant statement deeply upsetted her, but she is not the only Asian individual who has been targetted with this discrimination.

Joann Wang, a student at UMass Boston recounts her recent experience at a grocery store when two people suddenly “backed away and moved their shirts to cover their mouths and noses.”

“They are just plain ignorant,” she said.

Additionally, seventeen-year-old Dylan Hu stated that because of his own personal experience, coupled with hearing many of these similar incidents, he was hesitant to go out.

“Even if I have a cold, I dare not cough outside because I’m afraid I will cause many unnecessary misunderstandings,” he said.

These are a few examples of interactions that have troubled the Asian community since the Coronavirus pandemic began.

However, these occurrences can also result in physical harm. In a New York Post article, an Asian woman was attacked outside of her home with acid.

She suffered from “second-degree burns over her upper body, face, and hands,” officials said.

New York Officials also reported that “serious assaults were up 1.5 percent as of Sunday, despite the major effect the pandemic, COVID-19, has had on city crime.”

However, on a brighter note, Bill Huang, an IT Manager at Dell EMC, now works at home and describes the easier side of this quarantine situation.

“I have to set up computers, monitors and networks from home. It’s relatively easy as a program manager for Dell EMC. We actually already started the work from home trend,” Huang said.