COVID-19 on America’s shores was inevitable, literally here before we knew it. And almost as soon as it arrived, Asian-Americans from coast to coast began taking the heat. They still are.
by Mauve Maude
June 17, 2021
People were still panic-buying groceries last spring when Bawi Cung, a Burmese American in Midland, Texas, was attacked in a Sam’s Club meat department, along with two of his young children. After a nineteen-year-old assailant struck Cung in the back of the head and slashed his face with a knife, he then wounded Cung’s toddler and his six-year-old. A Sam’s Club employee, who quickly intervened, was also wounded before an armed, off-duty Border Patrol officer stepped in, and both men managed to subdue the attacker until police arrived. Cung and his sons went to the hospital in critical condition. The attacker later confessed to targeting the man and his two little boys because he “thought they were ‘Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus'”, as JuYeon Kim writes in the above article. A year later, Cung and his young sons still bear physical and mental scars. That was their personal introduction to a year of COVID trauma.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Asian-Americans have had to endure the same hardships as everyone else in some regards–shutdowns, layoffs, school closures, business losses, illness, deaths, masks, social distancing, and for some, the physical and mental perils and exhaustion of working in healthcare. But on top of all of that, there’s also been the very real danger of being harassed, attacked, or even killed, for nothing more than shopping, riding the subway, or walking down the street Asian, by people who associate the coronavirus and all of its troubles, with their ethnicity.
In the year between March 2020, when Bawi Cung was attacked, and March 2021, the Stop AAPI Hate coalition tracked more than 6,000 cases of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders being attacked, or harassed in other incidents. Sadly, that’s a stark increase from the “usual” number of incidents. These incidents and attacks have been concentrated in areas with larger Asian-American populations, such as cities on the East and West coasts. But people in between, such as Bawi Cung’s family in Texas, and Asian-Americans in Wisconsin, have felt the fear just as keenly. And in Atlanta, Georgia, in March, a young lone gunman targeted three different massage spas, taking eight lives, most of them Asian women. He blamed the violence on his ultra-religious upbringing and his sex addiction–presumably to Asian women–but supposedly, there was no racial motivation, at least not in relation to COVID. Nevertheless, after the year of attacks, America was no less on edge for that explanation.
Between March 2020 and March 2021, the Stop AAPI Hate coalition tracked more than 6,000 cases of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders being attacked or harassed.
Now, while COVID immunity is spreading instead of illness, and many Americans are going into a summer of near normalcy, Asian-Americans aren’t feeling the relief.
Perhaps that has something to do with the history of anti-Asian sentiment in our country. Because even though it was carried on by COVID-19–and with the (45th) President referring to the ‘rona as the “China virus” or “kung flu,” with a serving of applause sufficient enough to keep him doing it–it certainly didn’t begin there.
“In spite of historic, linguistic differences, distinct Asian nationalities have been grouped together and treated similarly in schools and in the larger society. The grouping of Asian Americans together, then, makes sense in light of historic links from the past to the present,” says the Asia Society website, attempting to briefly summarize nearly two hundred years of Asian-American history.
Like so many other American stories, it began with labor. Chinese men were first recruited to come to the United States as laborers before the Civil War. Thirty years later, the Chinese would be barred from immigration by the plainly named Chinese Exclusion Act, the only United States law to ever ban immigrants by race. But immigrants continued to come from other Asian countries, until eventually, virtually all Asian immigrants were lumped into the Exclusion Act as well. Filipino nationals, the only Asian immigrants allowed after the 1920s (due to the United States’ annexation of the Philippines), faced backlash into the 1930s, when their entry was limited as well. Then during World War II, Japanese-Americans, some of whom had been in the country for decades, were infamously stripped of their wealth and belongings and sent to live in internment camps. Asian-Americans weren’t granted nationalization rights in the United States until several years after WWII: in 1952.
As is the case with other American minority groups, much of that history, sentiment, and prejudice has been passed down through generations of Americans, further enhanced by ignorant reactions to events such as wars and pandemics–reactions that ignore individuals, their contributions, and the contributions of entire peoples to this country. Once the frenzied panic of 2020 arrived, with the country’s highest leader stoking the fire at every opportunity, we found ourselves at this place in history. And our fellow Americans, the ones of Asian descent, know very well how some other Americans behave. The truth is, we all do.
Cynthia Choi of AAPI feels that education is the key. She said, “Our work to address anti-Asian racism is inextricably tied to fighting anti-Black racism. That’s gonna take all of us, it’s gonna take public education efforts, it’s gonna take racial solidarity efforts that really bring our communities together.”
As is also the case with other minority groups, at the end of the day, American is what we all are. Bawi Cung said, “I don’t care. I’m proud of being Asian and Asian-American.” He’s done more to earn the right than most.
“That’s gonna take all of us, it’s gonna take public education efforts, it’s gonna take racial solidarity efforts that really bring our communities together.”
Cynthia Choi, Stop AAPI Hate