Items

• 
  2020-04-30

  No matter what: Racism is not okay

  This pandemic is hard enough for all of us. As a health care worker, I've been deemed one of the special "frontliners" the ones who still put on pants everyday to go to work and serve. So shouldn't I be happy? Isn't this what I signed up for when I decided to be a pharmacy technician part time during my undergrad? I'm happy to serve my community. I'm happy to be able to still be okay and healthy and make a difference by helping my patients. But I didn't sign up for racism. I didn't sign up for face rashes because my allergies still happen and when I sneeze all that snot and saliva gets caught in my mask, and by the end of the day my nose and lips are bright red. I didn't sign up for microagressions with anything, not even my age. In the pharmacy, I've had customers make inappropriate jabs at me about my age, ask for older looking workers because they don't think I'm experienced enough, but none of that prepared me for microagressions based on my race. Coming back to work during the pandemic was strange. Because I had traveled back to Southern California, and back up to Northern California for school, my boss didn't schedule me for 2 weeks-- weeks I had asked for off due to school events that were now, cancelled. Coming back during the crisis, I noticed little things. Customers sanitizing every thing I touched, standing a bit farther away from me from behind the plexiglass, but stepping closer to speak with other store associates, asking for other workers. This was fine. I just continued to serve with a smile. But today, today was the worst one yet. As I walked back into the store from lunch, two ladies blocked the walkway to get through to the pharmacy. Needing to get by, I walked a little close to them, but used an aisleway to get by. Noticing me walk by, they decided to scream: 6 FEET AWAY. SOCIAL DISTANCING at me, and only me. Not at the non-asian looking company employee clearly a bit too close to them, not at any other passerby's, just me- a Vietnamese girl who just needed to get back to her job. I still had a good 4 hours to go in the shift, and that didn't include crying. Keeping a straight face, I walked past them, and continued on to do my job. I kept a straight face the whole shift, until afterwards, I got into my car and cried. Those words shouldn't have hurt me in that way. I shouldn't have to hide my feelings, but they were there. As I sat in silence, finally steady enough to drive home, those words still haunted me the entire way back, until I got home, got into my room, turned off all the lights and continued to cry for all the hurt I felt from those words. Social distancing is important, but be mindful of the space you are taking up, and who is around you. Racism is never okay, and I hope my reaction to these words and actions prevent you from do anything of the same sort. Just because we're Asian does not mean this pandemic is our fault. We're all in this together, so we need to support each other, not tear each other down.