{"id":268,"date":"2023-04-09T11:11:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-09T18:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maginecreativeservices.com\/shadesmagazine2023\/?p=268"},"modified":"2023-08-14T14:15:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T21:15:42","slug":"when-words-matter-xenophobias-re-emergence-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maginecreativeservices.com\/shadesmagazine2023\/when-words-matter-xenophobias-re-emergence-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"don’t hate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Words Matter: Xenophobia\u2019s re-emergence in America<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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By Janice Lee, shades Magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember the first time I heard those four words \u2026 it\u2019s like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo back to China!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an odd remark for a boy to snap at me since I had never been to that country. When I was in elementary school in my native San Francisco, everyone in my class looked different from one another, so I had not given much thought to where everyone came from. I only knew that America was everyone\u2019s home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although that comment was made to me at a schoolyard in 1970, every Asian American of my generation and earlier has heard this targeted at them. I was set to prove that I could speak and write better English than any of the kids who wanted to categorize and taunt me. I didn\u2019t know that it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in college in the 1980s, three of the issues that shaped my larger view of how people are treated in the world were the apartheid in South Africa<\/a>, the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic<\/a> and the murder of a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin<\/a>, whose life was taken during a time when the American auto industry was facing manufacturing plant closures and worker layoffs due to weakened sales when imported Japanese cars entered the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAsian Invasion\u201d was a common proclamation used in headlines across the country. And in 1982, on the night of his bachelor party, Chin was beaten with a baseball bat by two auto workers, one unemployed. Witnesses heard one yell, \u201cIt\u2019s because of you little mother****ers that we\u2019re out of work!\u201d We all \u201clook alike\u201d so it didn\u2019t matter that Chin was American \u2013 Chinese American, in fact \u2013 and didn\u2019t work in their industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What arose in the decades that followed were the Asian American community\u2019s most outspoken and inspiring civil rights champions. Among them: Helen Zia<\/a> on justice for Asian Americans; Angela Oh<\/a> on intercommunity relations; and Yvonne Lee<\/a> on hate crimes across the country. Badass Women, to use a term for today\u2019s generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when Asian American women were commonly used as the pretty face on television and advertising, these women who kind of looked like me gave women like me power and credibility. I didn\u2019t have a Tiger Mom. I was a shy child, too afraid to ask questions in a classroom. But I could write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I wrote press releases, stories and speeches at first. Then, taglines, marketing materials, manuals and eventually funding proposals. Get the money in the hands of the people fighting discrimination and promoting diversity was my way of defeating racism. In 2008, a Millennial colleague from Southern California said he never experienced anti-Asian language directed at him. Good, I thought, maybe the world is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cwhat?\u201d flu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years since that first incident in the schoolyard, there are now 22 million Asian Americans in this country, almost 6 percent of the U.S. population. We are the fastest growing population<\/a> in the country, whether or not the upcoming U.S. Census will show it. Our country has made so much progress that we had an Asian American candidate for U.S. President<\/a> make it to the final debate rounds on a national stage with mass appeal to people from all walks of life and all colors. Yet, a virus that originated from China has sparked schoolyard insults by adults in leadership positions that have led to attacks around the world<\/a> on people who look like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans of Chinese ancestry are leading the call for all of our leaders to not use the terms \u201cChinese virus\u201d and \u201cKung Flu\u201d because they are demeaning. Period. History has shown us that xenophobia and hate violence increase when jobs and resources are perceived to be threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those preoccupied with taking care of loved ones in their household during the pandemic lockdowns across the country, we\u2019ve seen the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n