Items

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  2021-03-17

  Heavy hearted and defeated

  The rise of anti-Asian crimes has been a focal point of my predominantly Asian and Latinx community, and has increased to a point where our local police are trying to send out messages of reassurance and solidarity. But this isn’t something that comes out of nowhere. It has been bubbling under the surface as long as Asian Americans have lived in this country. The Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Asian citizenship, miscegenation laws, land laws, internment camps, the murder of Vincent Chin, hate crimes against Southeast Asian refugees, the stereotypes, the cheap sitcom jokes and potshots, the dual embrace and distaste of the so-called “model minority.” A year ago, as COVID-19 began to infect our everyday life even prior to shutdown, many of my students recounted racism they faced at the grocery store or other public places, as Asians were made the scapegoat of the pandemic. This racism was not happening in the Midwest, it was happening in diverse Southern California. How many times this year have I had the conversation with students, family, and friends about the otherness that is associated with being Asian in America? As half of an interracial marriage with an Asian partner, I have seen first hand the comments. Going to Disney World and having my husband joke that he had seen one and a half Asians that week, himself and my daughter - and seeing the stares. Comments from Disney World or airport employees who stared at us and said in a off putting tone, “you must be from California or Hawai’i,” to which I shot back with “why, because we’re so happy and relaxed?” They didn’t crack a smile. Or my husband’s best friend, who in medical residency in Kansas City was approached in a Panera Bread with a man saying “whaaa, you want to fight Bruce Lee” and being asked by his medical resident roommates to translate Ninja Warrior for them because he “knows Chinese” (he’s third generation Japanese American). The friend in grad school in Michigan who, while walking down the street, was met by women who held the corners of their eyes and chanted “ching chong, ching chong.” Never once has anyone repeated the question “where are you from” when I tell someone I am from California. My Asian American husband is always asked at least twice. Also from California, when he responds to the simple question of where is he from with “California,”there is always the tone change and the slowed down, “No, where are you FROM?” Because the underlying, uncomfortable reality is that apparently if you’re Asian, you can’t be “from” America. Your identity is forever a hyphen. But this was not part of the public conscience until recently. With the rhetoric of leadership that continually blamed China for COVID-19, using ethnically offensive names, the acts of racism my students were experiencing in March have evolved into full fledged violence and crime, peaking yesterday with a shooting. Here we are in another moment when COVID-19 has uncovered the ugliness that lies beneath the surface in a country that calls itself a democracy. A country where the police spokesperson tried to explain away the targeted murder of eight Asian women yesterday by saying the Caucasian male shooter was having a “bad day.” No justice, no peace sounds hollow when you wonder if there ever will be either.
• 2020-12-10

  My life in February. By Cory McEnroe

  My life in February was normal and pleasant. I was starting the baseball season and wrapping up basketball during this time. I remember on Valentine's Day a couple of friends and I went to the mall to hang out and have some fun. We were running around not knowing it would be the last time we would be allowed to. I mean just think about a normal 13-year-old boy's life. It was the best time of my life in 7th grade. I would hop around with my two main friend groups and talk about what teenagers talk about, sports, sleep, weekends. My friend Easton would run around on campus going up to random people and well actually you never knew what he was about to do. That's what I love about my friends, always lively and enjoying life. My normal day looked like getting up at 7 then getting to school around 8 and hustling to first period. Then after listening to people talk about math or something like that go to the next class, until we got to break. When we got to break and had just about the most intense games of basketball that you have ever seen. After a couple more classes we did the same thing at lunch. Then after like two more classes, I think, we headed on down to the locker room to get changed for baseball. We always had clean practices, little to no errors, and great hitting. Then I would pretend to do homework when I got home then I would actually do homework. Then I was in bed by 11:00. Then on March 13 we showed up to school and people were talking everywhere and the teachers met in the pod to talk some more, we didn't know what was happening so we went with the genius idea to tell everyone to go home and buy toilet paper. When I heard that a virus from a bat was spreading from China I knew something was wrong. Really? They can do better. It actually came from a lab because in China there are 1.4 billion people and because they are a communist country they don't care about their people. Also, think about it, corona only affects older people or people with respiratory problems (mostly old people). Making you think yet? Put the pieces together. Comes from a government-run lab, kills off older people, 1.4 billion people, a communist country, population control. It didn't come from a bat, you people are being lied to, there is a safe, cheap cure; hydroxychloroquine. They don't want you to know that because they want you to rely on the government. Sounds a lot like socialism. People don't think about the facts (99.92% recovery by the way), they just trust whatever they are told, whether that be through social media, TV shows, news, and other platforms. Do you know who wants to divide, break down, and control? The government and the devil. The situation we are in now is making the government look like a savior to us. Because WE (we being the government) have the vaccine, WE can flatten the curve, WE can be together by staying apart. See what I'm saying with this? They are seeing how far they can push us. No normal life before this matters until we know what's happening now. If we the people don't do something about this we will never go back to normal. I know that it was supposed to be about normal life in February but I want the facts in the history books.
• 
  10/17/2022

  Sachiko Mortia-Mulaney Oral History, 2020/10/17

  This is an Oral History interview with University of Cincinnati student Sachiko Morita-Mullaney. Sachiko discusses her experience as a student at the University of Cincinnati. She brings up her identity as a Japanese-American woman and how that has affected her personally during the pandemic due to anti-Asian racism. She also talks about her small online business, and the different ways her and her family’s employment have been affected by Covid-19. Sachiko, a Political Science major at the University of Cincinnati, is very informed about the government’s response to Covid-19. She shares her opinions about healthcare in the United States and how racism and classism have affected the United States’ response to the coronavirus. Finally, we talked about the future and the quality of the US response to the coronavirus.