In the past century and a half, the United States has made laws and national policies out of discrimination against ethnic groups, from the Chinese Exclusion Act to Japanese internment during World War II. There’s no official tally for how many incidents have occurred, but in late March, California Congresswoman Judy Chu estimated 100 hate crimes were being committed against Asian Americans each day. Random individuals have been physically assaulted, verbally harassed, and shunned across the country. Asian businesses and property have been vandalized with racist tags. By April an IPSOS poll found that three in 10 Americans blamed China or Chinese people for the virus.įor Asians in America, there is a new tension to daily life. As infections appeared in the U.S., President Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the 'China virus' and 'Chinese flu,' and pushed a disproved theory that it had originated in a Chinese lab. The racist incidents began as the first cases of coronavirus spread across China last December and disinformation reigned. have become targets of harassment and assault. In the months since the coronavirus pandemic began, thousands of Asians in the U.S. By the 1850s, Chinese immigrants comprised one-fifth of the population living around the gold mines of southern California. Here, seven miners, some white, some Chinese, stand next to a sluice box for trapping gold in Aubine Ravine, California, around 1852. They faced harsh treatment, high taxes on foreigners, and racially motivated violence. She was four blocks from home, but she burst into tears before she got to the end of the street.Ĭhinese laborers answering America's call for cheap labor came to California during the Gold Rush. So when the water bottle hit her chest and the slur rang out, Danny, a 33-year-old physician assistant, thought of the optimism and poise her grandmother had maintained through her 101 years and counting. Internment, she told her granddaughter, was a mistake. She and seven siblings slept on cots in horse stables. Her grandmother, Haruka 'Alice' Kikuchi, regaled Danny with stories about being 20 years old and going to jitterbug dances held at the Tanforan Racetrack in California, where she and nearly 7,800 other Japanese-Americans were interred by the U.S. Her grandfather, Eisaku 'Ace' Hiromura, barely spoke of his experiences in World War II, but the medals hanging on his wall told of combat with the 442 nd Infantry Regiment, a highly decorated unit of second-generation Japanese Americans. But in the house she shared with her grandparents in Brooklyn, the past engulfed her imagination. Growing up in New York, Danny rarely felt bigotry because of her Japanese heritage. She stood still on the sidewalk and tried to channel her grandmother. Her collarbone stung, but she told herself it didn’t matter, she was fine. The car melted into the rush of traffic, and Danny leaned over to pick up the liter of water that had hit her. A car whizzed by and a disembodied voice yelled a racial slur against Chinese people. Danny Satow was walking home from a stroll around her neighborhood in Federal Way, a suburb just south of Seattle, when a heavy object slammed into her chest.

N.y. courts slur root out is