As a Japanese person, I knew the stories that happened to Japanese Americans after the Pearl Harbor incident during WWII. After the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor, all Japanese Americans were treated as suspected spies. They were put in concentration camps and were not considered the same Americans as people from other races. Japanese American's shops were robbed, people live in concentration camps had to sleep on beds made out of staws: they were extremely discriminated against.
And unfortunately, I can see that history repeating now with Asian Americans.
It really saddens me that whenever I go grocery shopping now, I get strange looks from people that are from other races. I even try to avoid places like Safeway now and go to 99 Ranch instead so I could feel less self-conscious like Andrew Yang mentioned in his article.
I came to California 4 years ago thinking I could feel less self-conscious here as an Asian because there is so much diversity in this immigration state. I never thought that discrimination is happening here in the most diverse place in the whole world at this exact moment when what we have to do is unite instead of splitting apart due to racial reasons.
I sincerely hope this situation can end soon.
Question: How differently would the world view this virus if it originated in the US?
Reference
Senne, S. (2020). Jessica Wong, front left, Jenny Chiang, center, and Sheila Vo, of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission, join others in a protest on March 12 in Boston to condemn racism against Asian Americans because of the coronavirus.Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/02/targeting-asians-asian-americans-will-make-it-harder-stop-covid-19/
Yang, A. (2020, April 1). Opinion | Andrew Yang: We Asian Americans are not the virus, but we can be part of the cure. Retrieved April 5, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/01/andrew-yang-coronavirus-discrimination/
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