On May 11, 2023, the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency declaration ended. We can finally put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. Those months we spent at home, isolated in quarantine, are over. Throughout the pandemic, people were continuously talking about a “new normal,” and how that kept changing as the status of the virus fluctuated. Well, this is it. We’ve reached our new normal. COVID-19 is no longer, and we can just forget about it.

Well, except for the fact that we really shouldn’t. If we don’t know our history, we are doomed to repeat it. The pandemic negatively affected many groups of people, but I’d like to focus on one specifically: Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans. 

Chinese Americans were blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic and faced a lot of hostility from their fellow American citizens. According to this NBC news article, “Anti-Asian hate crimes increased 339 percent nationwide last year, report says,” written by Kimmy Yam, hate crimes against Asian Americans during 2020 reached disturbingly high numbers. In many cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans during 2020 surpassed their previous record numbers.

Although the pandemic is over, racism against Asian Americans is not. Chinese Americans in particular continue to face a lot of prejudice. While many East Asian cultures are celebrated and appreciated now in Western media through the popularity of K-pop, J-pop, anime, and K-dramas, Chinese culture is still excluded from this media spotlight. Oftentimes, Chinese beauty and Chinese dramas are mistaken as Korean media, but it is in fact Chinese. Chinese Americans should not have to pose as other East Asian cultures in order to be appreciated by Western media. 

A large factor of the hate that Chinese Americans receive from other American citizens is due to the tentatively hostile relationship between the U.S. government and the Chinese government. However, Chinese Americans are not responsible and shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of the Chinese government. Unfortunately, as seen by the events and hate crimes that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, many do blame Chinese Americans for events that occur in China.

This is not the first time that Asian Americans have been held responsible and faced discrimination for events occurring in the country of their ethnicity. For example, during World War II, the US government incarcerated Japanese Americans because they viewed the Japanese Americans liable for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans were viewed as spies and enemies of the country that they called home. George Takei’s comic book memoir They Called Us Enemy is a powerfully written account of his experiences in the internment camps as a child. He and his family, innocent American civilians, were imprisoned by the government that they trusted in the country that they called home.

During that time, other Asian Americans were also hostile toward Japanese Americans. According to “Asian American response to incarceration” from Densho Encyclopedia, “Asian Americans found themselves in a difficult predicament during World War II, as America’s wartime alliances polarized public opinion and pitted “good” Asians—e.g. Chinese, Korean, and Filipino Americans—against the “bad” Japanese enemy.” This is similar to how during the pandemic, and even now, Chinese Americans are the “bad enemy,” and Koreans and Japanese are viewed as “good” East Asians. 

There is a cycle here, a pattern to identify. In times of crisis where Asian countries are involved, Asian American citizens who share ethnicity and culture with that country are held responsible. They face discrimination and prejudice from their fellow American citizens for actions they are not connected to and did not cause. This happened during World War II with Japanese Americans, and again during the COVID-19 pandemic with Chinese Americans. 

To stop the cycle, we need to teach, learn, and remember our history. If we don’t know our history, we are doomed to repeat it and this pattern will continue. The article “We Still Haven’t Learned From This: Japanese American incarceration stories are American stories that need to be told.” from Learning for Justice by Cory Collins is an excellent resource that includes many details and advice on how to teach about the Japanese American incarceration in school. The stories of Japanese Americans shared in that source are inspiring and imperative to learn. 

We all need to do better, put an end to this cycle of Asian American hate, and stop repeating history.