How has anti-Asian racism still been prevalent in recent times and since the 1940s? It seems as though our history taught us nothing, our society has not been productive in working against the oppression of Asians in America. In fact, it has gotten worse.

While reading They Called Us Enemy, a graphic novel that highlights the experiences George Takei went through when Pearl Harbor had been bombed by Japan, I especially took notice that all of his trauma was at the hands of racism and xenophobia. In the novel, George and his family were taken from their homes by law enforcement and transferred to internment camps where they would be residing for roughly four years. The trauma placed upon thousands of families is indescribably unjust in the right that nearly all of the victims had zero involvement with the bombing… the sole reason for the mass internment was their heritage.

A couple days before reading They Called Us Enemy I read another graphic novel titled Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918. This novel, written by Don Brown, depicts life during the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918, and without difficulty, I connected this to the Covid-19 pandemic. The parallels are uncanny, everything from the influenza pandemic like the mask mandates, everything closing down, death tolls becoming out of hand, the race for a cure, and feelings of hopelessness have been witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic at some point. However, the differentiating factor between Covid-19 and the Spanish Influenza has to be how anti-Asian hate crimes absolutely skyrocketed. In a 2022 article by Kimmy Yam, it is established that anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 339% in recent years.

Reading these two graphic novels sequentially led me to bridge the fact that hate crimes, prejudice, and oppression against AAPI have not improved, at all. It has been 81 years since Pearl Harbor and we are still dealing with the consequences that manifested from it. You would think several decades would be enough time to make massive strides in our society but I guess not…