Sunday, April 5, 2020

Itsumi Nagakura - A04 - WEEK 1

On the Coronavirus

The Coronavirus has impacted almost every civilisation around the globe and has caused great confusion for their healthcare, governmental and economic system. However, there seems to be a clear disparity of those who have to suffer less than others. It is with great sadness to say that Asian immigrants across the globe are faced with discrimination by humans and people who are middle-class or lower face discrimination by the capitalist system. As a Japanese exchange student in America, I have witnessed racism against Asians by non-Asians in America and racism against Chinese people in Japan. Racism against Asians, especially the Chinese, in the U.S. stems from a long history of immigration starting from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

 
A poster celebrating the Chinese Exclusion Act’s passage, proclaiming that “The White Man is on Top.” Courtesy of the Royal BC Museum. (Fang, 2018)

The Yellow Peril has always been a consistent yet hidden ideology that people hold and when a certain event occurs to fit this, they are given a reason to be racist based on this idea. People can be proactively racist, but people can also be unknowingly racist as well. The sense of disgust people may get when they hear that the Coronavirus started because some people in China were eating bats, is caused by how in their culture, it is abnormal. What exactly is the difference between eating bats and eating beef or pork? On what basis, does it give people the right to be racist against an entire race because of something a small population of them did? Until when will this ideology continue? In Japan, I see Japanese people being racist to Chinese people which has always been an ongoing hatred caused by extreme patriots. This especially saddens me because, in a time like this, I feel Asians should especially be supporting this other and historically, Japan has no reason to be anti-Chinese considering the sickening invasions such as the Nanjing Massacre. 
Additionally, people who are middle-class or lower are especially struggling financially. Some who cannot afford medical care are hesitant to get checked and fall dead to the disease. In my experience, the scholarship I was receiving from the Japanese government was put to a stop and I was put in a spot in which I could not afford to stay in the U.S. nor go back to Japan as I could not afford the flight or the hotel to be quarantined in. However, many other people like me were put in the same spot and with petitions, I was allowed to receive my scholarship again. The Coronavirus pandemic may seem to be a dark time, but on the bright side, it seems to bring up a lot of social and political activity by the people as Coronavirus petitions now have cumulatively 3,590,563 signatures on change.org (Mix, 2020)

Works Cited

Fang, M. (2018, May 25). How The Chinese Exclusion Act Can Help Us Understand Immigration Politics Today. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chinese-exclusion-act-immigration-politics_n_5b06a90fe4b05f0fc84552cf

Takamatsu, S., Yoshizawa, N., & Suzuki, R. (n.d.). Japanese government scholarships discontinued by Coronavirus? Retrieved from https://www.change.org/p/japanese-government-scholarships-discontinued-by-coronavirus

[COVID-19] Save Waseda University's "Scholarship Refugees"! (n.d.). Retrieved from http://chng.it/CstZcYkBqs

Mix. (2020, March 18). Coronavirus petitions have generated over 3,590,563 signatures. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/insights/2020/03/11/coronavirus-covid-19-petitions-signed/






No comments:

Post a Comment