By Laura Antunez / Staff Writer
The United States has been using the month of May to commemorate Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage month since 1992. However this year, it seems more important than ever to stand up for Asian American heritage.
The Asian Pacific Heritage website explains that May was chosen because May of 1843 was the first reported immigration of Japanese to the U.S., and May of 1869 marks the completion of the transcontinental railroad which was predominantly built by Chinese workers.
Titi Nguyen (pronounced wen) is a 21-year-old Health Service Administration at FIU, Florida International University, who was born in Vietnam and immigrated here when she was five.
“Throughout most of my life I’ve had two identities, the American culture, and then at home where the Vietnamese culture has also played a big role,” said Nguyen. “My family still speaks Vietnamese and we do a lot of Vietnamese things.”
Recently, her mom and brother experienced xenophobia while shopping at Costco.
“They were trying to get some groceries at Costco and these people were behind them saying ‘coronavirus walking through and my mom and my brother doesn’t really speak English very well,” she said. “But you understand things like that, you understand people’s energies and the way they look at you and saying things like that during a pandemic.”
The A3PCON, Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, launched a stop AAPI hate reporting center on March 19, 2020, and received nearly 1,500 reports of coronavirus related discrimination towards Asian Americans in only four weeks.
According to the report, the chances of discriminatory action were more than twice as likely for women than for men, and almost half of incidents happened at a private business. The results came from 45 states across the country and Washington DC.
“It’s not something that surprises me,” said Nguyen when asked how they felt about the rise in discrimination towards Asian Americans. “Racism against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, in general, is not new.”
She said that although racism against Asian Americans is getting more attention, it’s something that’s been present for ages. “We’ve had the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese Internment Camps.”
Nguyen also said a big part of the prejudice against Asian Americans has to do with the model minority stereotype. This has to do with the notion that all Asians have to be good at math or science and get perfect grades.
The University of Texas at Austin offers help to Asian students facing this stereotype, one of the more notable suggestions being “pay attention to what brings you satisfaction and fulfillment, as they may be different from what others expect of you.”
This sentiment is very similar to the sentiment Germans felt towards Jewish people in justifying the horrific actions that were taken against them. Germans felt that Jews had money and power and therefore deserved to be treated as they were.
A combination of rhetoric by President Trump emphasizing the virus as “the Chinese Virus” and underlying racist ideals have both been attributed to contributing to the rise in intolerance towards Asians.
“It’s not race that this virus comes from but it’s definitely taken out on the wrong group of people,” said Nguyen.
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