An International Student Perspective on Anti-Asian Hate
Submitted by an Anonymous Student
The impact of the Covid 19 Pandemic on my life as a college student is somewhat unique compared to other Asian American students because of my status as an international student holding an F1 visa. My original plan of spending the summer with my parents back in China was canceled not only due to the concern of exposing myself to the virus, but also due to the increased political tension between China and the U.S. during the pandemic. My personal plans of applying to work in a research lab was also postponed because I was unable to attain a social security number. Many of my fellow international students on the other hand went through much more serious issues, such as taking classes across different time zones and having to take care of families that contracted the virus. In Particular, at the start of the pandemic, the international student community as a whole went through an immense crisis due to a government policy. On July 6th, 2020, the ICE (U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement) released a policy which states that all international students currently in the U.S. are required to enroll in at least one in-person class in order to maintain their legal status. If not, they might face consequences such as deportation. The policy is mostly caused by former President Donald Trump’s plan of reopening the schools in order to stimulate the economy, because in-person instruction requires international students to live in the vicinity of the campus and engage in consummation. Needless to say, this policy was incredibly unreasonable, because the majority of colleges did not offer any in-person classes at the time, and it was extremely difficult for students to return to their home country during a global pandemic. Although this policy was never enacted, the feeling of discontent and being excluded remain within the community.
My community’s feeling of discontent and being excluded is very similar to the feelings of the Asian American community, because they stemmed from the same issue of xenophobia. Although Asian Americans are legitimate American Citizens, the portrayal of the Oriental stereotype and the administration’s rhetoric of the “China Virus” alienates Asian Americans as outsiders and foreigners. This led to the occurrence of many hate crimes against Asian Americans, including many elderly people and women. Personally, I observed such occurrences online: on videos of an Asian person sharing their ethnic cuisines, the comment section is filled with racist rhetoric such as “coronavirus”, “bat-eaters”, and “go back to your country”. Anti-Asian hate culminated in the March 16 Atlanta Shooting, which resulted in the death of eight Asian Women. Being an Asian woman myself, I cannot imagine the pain they and their families went through, all because of racial discriminations.
In my opinion, Asian Americans need to tackle the issue of the Oriental stereotype through political activism and legislative changes. To do so, Asian Americans need to avoid the mentality of appealing to the model minority stereotype and try to resolve their issues by being “more American”. For example, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s claim that Asian Americans need to "wear red white and blue” and “show without a shadow of a doubt that we are Americans who will do our part for our country in this time of need" in order to resolve the issue of hate crimes is extremely harmful to the Asian American community. Instead, Asian Americans should work towards the recognition of Asian American as Americans no matter how “American” they are.
Tags: Asian, COVID-19, International, Race Relations