Niccijade Reeves-Alhark
Staff Reporter
According to reports from the U.N. (United Nations), hate crimes against the Asian community have increased rapidly, having “more than 1,800 racist incidents against Asian-Americans in the United States have been reported over an 8-week period from March to May 2020.” From March to December of 2020, as stated in Stop APPI Hate incident data, 2,808 cases were reported. The hate crimes consist of verbal and physical assault and harassment, vandalism of property, and denial of service and access in public areas. Some people have even died from these violent, racially-charged attacks.
There are several reasons these crimes are occurring, the current one being COVID-19. In the same report from the U.N. states that the reports submitted have been discriminated against as “transmitters” of the coronavirus. In an interview with CNN, Professor Chang of NYU (New York University) claims President Donald J. Trump referring to COVID-19 as the “Kung Flu” and the “China Virus”, terms that were debunked and claimed as racist by Yale School of Medicine, contributed to the cycle of discrimination that was already on the rise. The naming stems from the first known infections, as recorded by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), being located in Wuhan, China. This led to stereotyping and discrimination against Chinese people, which was generalized to all Asians as the virus spread.
In addition to COVID-19, there is a history of anti-Asian racism in the United States. The discrimination started almost instantly when Eastern Asians began to immigrate to America, according to an article by TODAY, they were driven out of towns left and right during the Gold Rush in fear of lowering wages and generally were not accepted as Americans. They were killed, lynched, and massacred similar to African and Native Americans. Acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 were also put in place to stop them from coming to America.
This stigma against Asian Americans has carried into the present, just in different excusable forms, but the message is still the same, “go back to your country.”
Here at Ironwood’s Eagle’s Eye, we encourage you to do your own research on this topic and find ways you can help, whether it be signing petitions, participating in protests, or spreading the word. Discrimination in general is a topic that requires discussion and we wish to only bring to light the issues we should all try to address.
Image Credits: Ringo Chiu, Chava Sanchez, Dia Dipasupil, Steven Senne, Jim Wilson, Getty Images
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