Yvonne Chen ASA 002 A01 Week 1

As a Chinese who study aboard in America, I found that I almost experienced the war
of Coronavirus twice. After the winter break, I came back to the US to continue my
studies. At the same time, Coronavirus spread in China at a crazy speed due to the
Spring Festival. I keep tracking all kinds of information about the virus and worrying
about my family’s health. I kept telling my family to wear a mask, but they thought I
exaggerate the degree of severe about this virus because there isn’t any popular social
media and news asserts the severity of Coronavirus. When they started to notice the
negative influence of the virus on human health, it was already too late to buy masks.
Fortunately, they stayed in our hometown, a small village without too many interactions
among people. Thus, all of my family and friends are safe and healthy. It’s undeniable
that all Chinese hurt so badly during this “war”, even though news and media only show
how effective the government did. At the beginning of Coronavirus, news and media
tried to hide information about the spread of this virus as they want to avoid panic among
people. Also, problems of government appeared while the news and media hide all of
them. They try to use the hardship of all doctors and nurses to transfer people’s focus
so that they can forget those bad things and only remember good things. To be honest,
they are successful, because now people are celebrating our success while nobody still
mentions those failures of government actions. Moreover, nobody would like to do
reflections on their behaviors. My parents’ friends were in Wuhan at that time, and it’s
clear that things are much worse and hopeless than any news said. However, people
are forgetting those pains, and forgetting people who were dead during this “war”. Do
you think news and social media in America frame the fact worse or better.

I hope Professor Valverde and TAs can provide help to students who are not in
America due to Coronavirus. There are time differences, internet problems, and
many other issues. I want to try my best to learn this course and know more about
injustice and unfair treatment met by all Asian Americans in the US. After reading
part of “Fight the Tower”, I can feel the long and hard way of Asian Americans to
fight for their rights. Professor Valverde mentions discriminations that I didn’t notice
before such as the color of faculty and their income level. Also, the podcast is a new
thing for me, I’m interested in it and I believe I can know more about it after this course.

Reference:

1. Valverde, Kieu-Linh Caroline (2013) "Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women
of Color in Academia," Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 12: Iss. 2, Article 5.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol12/iss2/5

2. Barua, Sanjay. “The Power of Social Media.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 2 Aug. 2013,
www.slideshare.net/sanjaykrazee/presentation1-24884480.