I was waiting to check out my grocery. The line was long but shoppers were all patient. Ahead of me was an elderly gentleman pulling a loaded shopping cart with two big packages of toilet paper on top. When it was his turn, he pulled the cart perhaps a bit too quickly towards the counter and one package fell off. Without much thinking, I stepped forward to pick up the toilet paper, but was immediately stopped by a loud “I got it!” The gentleman hastily came over, picked up the package and put it on the counter. He avoided looking towards me, but I saw his face, I saw his eyes and I could sense his fear.
Suddenly, I became keenly aware of my being Chinese. During this frightening time of virus outbreak, when our nation’s leader deliberately and repeatedly uses the term “Chinese virus” instead of “COVID-19”, which is used by all medical professionals, when a senior senator faults Chinese for the swine flu, which actually originated in north America, when a television host demands apology from China for the novel coronavirus while the international medical community is still searching for the definitive origin of this virus, it is not surprising that some people will be wary of Chinese and other Asians.
Virus is invisible and can be deadly. When it strikes, people tend to be afraid and frightened. They will get angry and resentful if nothing is being done to tackle the outbreak. One easy way to direct people’s anger away from government’s inaction and/or failure is to find a scapegoat, a visible scapegoat.
According to HHS secretary Alex Azar, the US government was notified of the novel coronavirus on January 3, 2020. Since then, we have been told coronavirus was a Democrat “hoax” and media “hysteria”. We have been told it would disappear “like a miracle” and that 15 infected cases would go down to zero “within a couple of days”. We were assured that “anybody that wants a test can get a test”. In fact, we were even promised a vaccine that was being “rapidly” developed and would be ready in “a fairly quick manner”. When all this and other falsehood didn’t stick, blaming Chinese has become another ploy.
Eventually people will see through this ploy, but before that, who knows how many people will fall victim to anti-Asian crimes. My fear of coronavirus may very well be over in two months, but my fear of xenophobia and bigotry may last much longer.