Items

• 
  2023-05-15

  Pandemics and Human Tendency

  Human beings have experienced pandemic throughout the history. However, the there are always conflicts, violence, and division occur. In order not to repeat the history, it is important to learn from the past and apply to our everyday lives.
• 2020-05

  The Year That Never Felt Real

  When COVID-19 first started spreading in the United States I remember the hysteria that spread so quickly. Not very long ago the aisles in every grocery store in America were empty of non-perishable goods, water bottles, and toilet paper. In the first Fam Bam group chat messages we were making fun of the people buying up all the water bottles, and toilet paper but when we couldn't find toilet paper literally anywhere a little bit of fear struck our household. Just as everyone else did, we began to realize the reality of the new world we were living in and the differences it would make in our lives. In the initial isolation stages I am not going to lie, there was some enjoyment. No work, mandatory social expectations, I was isolated playing my video games, reading my books, ignorant to what was going on in the rest of the world around me almost. It is unhealthy to spend days on end in your room without much social interaction outside of family, sunlight, exercise, just normal day to day life. The walls of my room felt as though they started to shrink day by day, finally when I was called back to work everything was just... different. We were wearing masks, which in my opinion was not really a big deal at all at this point I had begun to understand the reality of COVID. What I experienced from here on was not enjoyable to say the least, when we began doing things in public again everybody felt sort of tense all the time, the energy in places felt dystopic. As a Starbucks Barista we had to mandate masks to every person that came into our store, as a 24 year old working as the manager on the floor I had to deal with some brutal harassment during this time. Every time a customer came in maskless it was my job to ask them "is it okay if I get a mask for you?" if they said no, I had to ask them to take their order outside or refuse them service. Whether I agreed with the policy or not was irrelevant, I had a job to do if I wished to maintain an income so I did my job. Sometimes I would get cursed at, called communist, and just dealt with genuine harassment on a regular basis. When the governor relieved the state of their state wide mask mandate but Starbucks maintained there's it was even worse for us we were the scape goats for a mask mandate and political arguments between two sides we had no part of, the community treated us like political punching bags. To be quite honest, the transition back into society was emotionally exhausting for everyone, but I will never forget how people treated me as an employee just doing there job. At the end of it, I didn't even realize the year had past it just didn't even feel like it really happened.
• 
  2021-03-21

  ‘Asian-American businesses are dealing with two viruses’

  Reeling from racist incidents, many are hurting financially during COVID-19. The Atlanta-area spa shootings of eight people, six of whom were Asian women, have drawn renewed attention to anti-Asian incidents that have grown in frequency during the pandemic. As documented incidents of harassment, assault and discrimination against Asian Americans have escalated during COVID-19, many groups within the community have also faced heightened financial strain. Advocates say it’s beyond time to acknowledge and take action on both.
• 
  2020-09-17

  'You have Chinese virus!'

  The Stop AAPI Hate Youth Campaign, which interviewed nearly 1,000 young Asian American adults across the country about their experiences with racism during the coronavirus pandemic found that 1 in 4 Asian American youths experience racist bullying. Discrimination in the form of physical and verbal attacks often also include questioning the identity of Asians as American, with statements such as "go back to where you came from."
• 
  2020-07-01

  Many Black and Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak

  About four-in-ten U.S. adults say it has become more common for people to express racist views toward Asians since the pandemic began. Asian and Black Americans are more likely than other groups to report negative experiences because of their race or ethnicity since the COVID-19 outbreak began.
• 
  2020-07-27

  Justice for Vanessa Guillen

  "The lives of Latino soldiers should be just as valuable as the lives of any other soldier of any other ethnicity. Together we are going to move seas, and together even the heavens will hear us. Whether it be for Black Lives Matter, for Vanessa, for Sean, for George, for Breonna, for everybody, for Andreas. We are going to do it," said Samantha Varela, protesting for Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen.⁣ ⁣ Details of Vanessa Guillen's death and disappearance are just beginning to be revealed. It still doesn't paint a full picture of the Army's negligence in preventing and responding to sexual assault and harassment. ⁣ ⁣ Follow @findvanessaguillen for the latest updates and national actions. Funds are currently being raised for a March in DC on July 30th to demand a Congressional investigation into her death. Photos from Justice for Vanessa Guillen, July 12, 2020
• 
  2020-09-18

  Sex Work in Africa During Covid-19

  As subsaharan Africa already had a pandemic of HIV/AIDS prior to Covid, it has made sex work even more dangerous in Africa. For many, it has also lead to a reduced income and increased harassment.
• 
  2020-06-22

  Six in 10 Chinese Canadians say they have adjusted routines to avoid racist run-ins during COVID-19

  Article discussing the statistics of racism and fear thereof towards people of Chinese descent in Canada during the pandemic. "Community groups, individuals and some police departments have raised the alarm about harassment linked to the pandemic, but the executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, Shachi Kurl, says the goal of the survey was to try and generate some empirical data on the issue. 'What we hear from Canadians of Chinese descent and Chinese ethnicity is, this is a real lived experience for significant numbers of them,' Ms. Kurl said in an interview. '[The survey] really speaks to the depth and breadth and scope and true saturation of this experience.'
• 
  2020-05-11

  Indigenous Peoples' Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines threatened and harassed

  "These increased threats come at a time when Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, on 1 April 2020, issued shoot-to-kill orders targeting individuals and organisations seen as ‘troublemakers’, a general term that includes ‘communists’, ‘leftists’ or anyone seen as opposing his rule, including Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights Defenders."
• 
  2020-04-24

  "The Trump administration could soon allow doctors to discriminate against LGBTQ people" Vox News article.

  As the death toll and rate of infections continue to rise, the Trump administration is working to repeal an Obama-era rule which made it illegal for healthcare workers to deny care based on someone's gender identity or sexual orientation. The implication is that LGBTQ+ could be turned away from hospitals in the midst of a global pandemic.