Fact Checked Source: Lauren Aratani, "Coughing while Asian: living in fear as racism feeds off coronavirus panic"

Looking Deeper: Five Fact-Checked Claims

The last few weeks has seen a rise in racist incidents and comments directed toward Asian Americans tied to fears of coronavirus.

This fact matters because it's important to understand the consequences of stigmas in society. The Washington Post confirms this statement by referencing an international team of scholars that published research on anti-Chinese slurs online.

There is also a history of leaders painting those in an outsider group as diseased

I wanted to look at this claim because we can learn a lot from our history. An article from The Conversation references a scholarly piece from Oxford Academic, which discusses the persecution of Jews during the Black Death in the 14th century. This is just one well documented example of governments placing blame on targeted groups during pandemics, therefore confirming the fact above.

“This is becoming more widespread,” said Chou, an associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University....The last few weeks has seen a rise in racist incidents and comments directed toward Asian Americans tied to fears of coronavirus.

I wanted to look at this claim because it makes the connection of racist incidents to public uncertainty of the pandemic. An article published by Vox confirms this fact when it mentions that the FBI has predicted that racist attacks on Asian-Americans will continue to rise as coronavirus infections grow.

Last week Trump started to refer to Covid-19 as the Chinese virus... Trump doubled down on the name at a press conference on Wednesday, insisting that using the term is not racist.

This claim is important because this could be one of the reasons for the stigma developed towards the Asian population. An article published by Politico confirms the claim that President Trump identifies the virus as the "Chinese Virus" and defends his use of it through Tweets and press conferences. 

Trump has received support from his allies who have defended the president for giving coronavirus a new name.

I wanted to look at this claim because the support Trump is receiving for calling it the "Chinese Virus" could be one of the reasons he keeps calling it that. A Tweet from The Hill provides a video that confirms that at least one of Trumps allies, Senator John Cornyn, supports his use of the term "Chinese Virus".

Analytic Essay

Stigmas and Fear: The Asian-American Perspective on COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 within the global population has caused nearly our entire society to be put on hold for an indefinite amount of time. More specifically, in America, many states have decided it would be best to shut down completely. During times of crisis like this, the general public often seeks  to issue blame upon a certain group of people. In this case, the group that takes the most blame for the pandemic in America is the Asian-American people. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, a dramatic increase of discriminatory and racist events have occurred towards Asian-Americans in our society, simply because the virus originated in China. As a result, many innocent Asian-Americans are becoming victims of racial discrimination and living in fear due to stigmas surrounding COVID-19.

Recently, there has been an increase in reported cases of Asian discrimination and racism. On March 25, 2020, MRP reporter Hannah Yang describes an incident of racism at her local grocery store that left her in shock. As a daughter to two Korean-American immigrants, her first hand account of pandemic-fueled racism and discrimination is a useful source in gaining insight into the treatment Asian-Americans are receiving in a time of a global pandemic. In an article published by the Sahan Journal, Yang states that “during a recent grocery run, I was searching for a jar of tomato sauce when I overheard whispers that made me nearly drop to my knees: ‘Trump should send them back,’ I heard one man say, followed by, ‘She looks diseased.’ (Yang 2020)”. Yang’s personal account, along with the accounts of other Asian-Americans, is incredibly useful in understanding the disturbing treatment and resulting fear by Asian-Americans.

Historically, this is not the first time a certain demographic has been targeted for their perceived involvement in a global pandemic. Much like the Asian-American demographic has been subject to recent attacks and racism, the Latino population unfortunately faced similar treatment during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. A psychological research study conducted on the H1N1 pandemic sought to analyze the causes of concern and coping strategies that individuals from different demographics had during the H1N1 pandemic. 
 

While discussing the H1N1 focus groups conversations, the study mentions that “when stereotypes were part of the conversation, Latinos reported fewer positive strategies and many more negative-disengaged strategies (McCauley, M., Minsky, S. & Viswanath, K 2013)”. The mentioning of flu-related stigmas and stereotypes in the focus group discussions resulted in Latinos reporting negative coping strategies, such as avoiding or denying the problem, or antagonizing people who seem threatening. Asians across America and across the world are now experiencing treatment similar to what the Latinos did during the H1N1 pandemic.

An article published by The Guardian emphasizes that “the last few weeks has seen a rise in racist incidents and comments directed toward Asian Americans tied to fears of coronavirus (Aratani 2020)”. Recently, the misinformation surrounding the origin and cause of the COVID-19 virus has led to Asian-American citizens living in a state of fear caused by stigmas. Asian-American history scholars, such as professor Claire Jean Kim, highlight the long history of the discrimination of the Asian population. For example, Chinese immigrants were viewed as inferior, filthy and diseased upon arrival in the United States (Aratani 2020). The discrimination of Asian-Americans in the past has given way to an evolved form of racism due to the emergence of COVID-19 and the coincidence of it originating in China. 

One issue with the discussion of racist events in Asian communities is the lack of hard data. In an effort to provide both quantitative and qualitative  data, an article published by NPR explains the creation and need for a tracking website. “Last week Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, started tracking these attacks on a new website he helped launch called ‘Stop AAPI Hate’. In the site's first eight days, it received more than 650 reports of discrimination — largely against the Asian American community (Mullis, S., & Glenn, H)”. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the Asian-American community has been collaborating with civil rights organizations to come up with solutions to lessen tension.

The creator of the site, Russell Jeung, describes the need for the site. “We found hundreds of articles about policies that people thought were xenophobic, economic boycotts of Asian businesses and then later on about interactions that Asian Americans were having where people were bullying, taunting, harassing and now attacking (Jeung 2020)”. The website aims to expose and emphasize the fearful feelings of Asian-Americans. Asian-Americans can trust anonymous sites like this to report events. Many of the incidents reported involve blatant racism resulting in the victims feeling embarrassed and fearful.

It is important to include the perspective of Asian-Americans with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic because they are the ones that face the increased fear of being shamed for their false involvement in the origin of the virus first-hand. In the age of advanced technology and accessible online news feeds, most people found out early on into the pandemic that it originated in Wuhan, China. Unfortunately, some people choose to use this fact to wrongfully place blame upon others. Hopefully one day we can replace stereotypes and stigmas with collaboration and cooperation to focus on a common enemy as humans.

References