Covid-19 Ignites Anti-Asian Discrimination

同志社国際高等学校３年

Caroline Namikas

Compared to one or two centuries ago, or even one or two decades ago, the problemof racism seems to have been mitigated.

With globalization enabling the mingling ofdifferent races, it seems that every generation, people are becoming increasingly openminded towards other races. . .or so we thought.

As Covid-19 turned our world as weknow it upside down, spiking the unemployment rate as economies crash, locking people
in quarantine, and causing the death toll to skyrocket with nearly one million dead,

英語高校生－everyone is upset and uneasy about the situation.

In times like these, it is human nature

to pin blame onto someone or some group, so Asians became the scapegoats.

Covid-19 is

the spark that ignited the hatred towards Asians, unveiling the true nature of xenophobic
and racist people, as they now have the pandemic as justification for their hostility.
Those of Asian descent now face verbal harassment, bullying, and physical assault, justto name a few.

The pandemic brought the issue of xenophobia and racism under thespotlight.
Although there has been Asian discrimination all around the globe, it’s particularly
bad in countries that have ethnic diversity yet still favor white people, such as in theUnited States.

The Chinese and other Asians are scorned upon, despite the fact that thepeople who spread the virus to the United States are most likely Europeans such as
Italians.

Asidefromdirectlyattacking

Asians,someareevenspreading

absurdxenophobic conspiracies, such as that China created the virus in a lab for world
domination.

Of course, the American president is exacerbating the problem, as he relies

on using people’s fear to claim he will fight against the “enemies”, as in the Chinese.

Joe

Biden is not helping matters as he released an advertisement accusing Trump of letting in
40,000 Chinese travelers, which implies that they carried the virus to America.

Unable todistinguish between travelers or recent immigrants, and those who have lived in America
their whole lives, people are telling Asian-Americans to go back to their own country,
when America is their home country.

One of my best friends in America is half Chineseand half Japanese, but grew up in America all her life, unable to speak a word ofChinese.

Althoughshewasnotpersonally harassed,

many Asians

likeher are

experiencing an identity crisis because of the inappropriate words of thoughtless people.
Outright racist wrath isn’t a problem in Asian countries such as Japan like it is inAmerica, perhaps partially because they haven’t been hit as hard, but many still harbor ill
feelings towards the Chinese people for letting the virus spread into other countries.
Towards the beginning of the pandemic, when there were still quite a few Chinese tourists

18since the borders were open, I definitely noticed some discreet discrimination towards theChinese.

When I was on the train home, and there were some Chinese tourists boarding,

my friend who was next to me whispered ‘Why are there Chinese here? They should stay
in China’, then proceeded to cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve, as she wasn’twearing a mask since it wasn’t mandatory yet.

I understand why she reacted this way,since it is best to contain the spread, however I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.

It

made me think that if those who are generally accepting of other ethnicities react thisway, the Chinese must be receiving a lot of hate from racist people.

My fears came true

when it spread to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, there is no single obvious solution to this problem.
does not mean the problem of racism can be ignored.

However, that

The first step to a peaceful andjust society is to elect leaders that don’t say anything racist, since they are the exampleof their countries.

Moreover, everyone can speak out against racist comments or try tohelp people understand that Asians should not be solely blamed for the pandemic.

up in an environment with ethnic diversity.

Nurturing people to be accustomed toTeaching people to respect everyone in school could be beneficial, but growing up in adiverse environment is the easiest way for people to be accepting of others.
Solving the issue of racism and xenophobia won’t be quick and easy, as it is deeply
rooted into society, but this isn’t a problem we can ignore.

Rather than wasting energyon fueling hatred towards Asians, everyone needs to come together to overcome adversity.
Unity is necessary now more than ever before, in order for governments to cooperate to
make a vaccine for Covid-19, as well as to heal the world in the aftermath of the19－高校生

diversity is very impactful, as it can keep those from being fearful of different races.

pandemic.

英語

Nevertheless, in order to completely eradicate racism, it’s necessary for everyone to grow