The cost of being visible: Anti-Asian sentiment in the COVID age

Ronia Ibrahim (she/her)

CW: discussion of racial violence

I recently watched Minari, an A24 film documenting a Korean-American family’s experience with moving to rural Arkansas in search of the American Dream. It’s a heart warming, heart crushing story about the immigrant experience, and follows a strained family in their attempts to mend their relationships and uphold their cultural roots while searching for success in a new land. So yeah, devastating. I left the film sobbing, much to the dismay of the elderly Pākehā couple that I shared the theatre with that day. 

The movie date was supposed to be my self care day activity, after what had been a difficult week of work stress. Lunch with my immigrant dad shortly after was difficult, with me trying to appear both cheerful and present, while inside, I was processing a million different emotions and a chicken vindaloo. The representation in that film made me feel understood in a way I hadn’t experienced before much in cinema. Though I’m not Korean, I saw my Dadu and ā pó in the family’s Halmeoni; myself in the big sister, and my own parents in the family’s crumbling marriage. The representation made me feel seen, but the visibility left me shook and shattered.

I’m quick to tell Sochetha, my fellow Asian film and media buff, about it. Our friendship revolves a lot around lengthy conversations—mostly about Asian representation and pop culture. She relays me all the goss relating to upcoming movies, awards, and K-pop Spotify meltdowns. We’ve just finished a nearly 3 hour design studio session, and, in the spirit of 1) Self care 2) Being ambitious 3) Being Asian(?), we’re trying Taste of Home for the first time. Her order is a glistening hand pulled noodle soup, mine a vegan Zha Jiang Mian. But instead of catching up on what we were up to over summer, Sochetha, whose background is Cambodian, tells me about a few weird experiences she and her family have encountered over the break.

She’s told me stories before, but she says that after COVID, uncomfortable occurrences are happening more often. She recounts some of her aunty’s strange experiences. The first instance was in a retail store where she asked to pay cash, to which the cashier replied “Is it real?” The cashier then proceeded to take her cash and inspect it under the light. Another instance takes place at a gym during Level 2, where Sochetha’s aunty was instructed to wait outside a gym class, yet others were allowed to walk straight in. Both these stories make me raise my eyebrows. But Sochetha quickly brings up that the people at the gym and at the store “just so happened to be white”. Sure, it doesn’t seem like overt racism—or racism at all? But I can’t help but notice that, on the other hand, Sochetha’s aunty just so happened to be a premium membership gym holder, that the store just so happened to be empty.  She just so happened to be at the right place at the wrong time. 

Sochetha tells me of her own experiences too—one being where an eldery white man began speaking to her in Chinese, and when Sochetha apologised that she didn’t speak Chinese, he proceeded to tell his life story about working in China once upon a time, while asking about her cultural background. She admitted she felt quite stressed, especially at the volume of his voice. “But we were passing a really loud part of the train tracks',' she said, “so it would’ve been hard to hear. “ I’ve had similar experiences too—where another elderly white man approached me and told me I was “lucky I didn’t need to tan” and that my skin colour “suited me”, before patting my shoulder as he left. Sochetha’s eyes widen when I tell her this, but I shrug. The man was known to be a chatty, friendly member of my small town. “I’m sure he meant well”, I said. “It was just funny.” Old white men just regard us as people of colour. They don’t know any better, it’s well-meaning, sweet even.

“Are you sure you want these stories?” Sochetha asks me. She’s unsure whether they're worth sharing, worried she’s overreacting. With each story she narrates—getting cut in line at the supermarket, people standing a bit too far from her while she’s waiting in line for sushi—she’s quick to bring up excuses: it’s always busy at the supermarket, people are just socially distancing. 

I put down my Zha Jiang Mian (half because I’ve realised something, half because the spice is getting to me now). “Hang on, I’m noticing a pattern here. Everytime we have an uncomfortable experience, no matter big or small, we’re quick to discount our discomfort.” (These aren’t my exact words, but I like to think I made a very eloquent and compelling statement) “We make excuses, brush off these instances. In turn, we blame ourselves for inviting them or feeling marginalised. 

Back in 2020 in the early days of COVID, a rise of racial harassment against Asians began to surface. “Traumatising” accounts from people like Sally Han, who was left in fear for her safety when at a festival a couple in their 30s spilled drinks on her, grabbed her aggressively, asked her if she knew where coronavirus came from. In another instance just this month, a man was kicked out of a restaurant for verbally abusing its staff and customers. When denied of being served first, he referred to “bloody Chinese” being too slow to order, remarking “you people are always like this”. When confronted by customers, he told them to “go back to China”, and when replied to with “the Māori were here first”, he proceeded to “give a history lesson” on the debunked Moriori myth. 

In an age of global anxiety and suffering, and with the help of fear mongering by leaders like Trump referring to COVID-19 as “The Chinese Virus”, targeted attacks against Asians are a response to long-existing stigmas towards Asian people in the West. Racism has gone way beyond just jokes about eating bats, and New Zealand isn’t an exception. 

According to a Human Rights’ Commision Report, in New Zealand, 54% of Chinese people had reported being a victim of racial harassment or discrimination, as of February 2021. 55% of Māori surveyed had also experienced discrimination, followed by 50% of Pasifika respondents. During the last few semi-lockdowns, ridicule, mockery and hatred towards Māori/Pasifika communities and the majority non-white population of South Auckland have also been common. Colonisation, white supremacy, and racism is entrenched in our society, and BIPOC are often the scapegoats for any of our nation's problems.

On the night of March 16, eight people were killed in a mass shooting targeting day spa/massage parlours in Atlanta. Six of the victims were Asian women. According to VOA News, Asian hate crimes in America have increased in triple digit percentages in some states in the past year, with New York incidents reporting an increase of 833%. Reports range from young and old being punched, stabbed, spat on, and shouted at. Many of the victims of these crimes are of the elderly community, who are most vulnerable. I’m filled with sharp sorrow when I hear reports and see images of elderly men with swollen plum-like faces, some even left for dead. After being punched by a white man, a 76 year old Asian woman that resembles my ā pó holds a wooden stick and bravely cries “I cannot be bullied by bad guys!” 

The suspect of the Atlanta shootings cited his sexual addiction as the reason for targeting “the temptation” of massage parlours. Yet these businesses were Asian owned. Asian women have to deal with the cultural stereotype of being submissive, easy targets—their visibility is vulnerability. A sheriff expressed sympathy to the shooter who he believes “was having a bad day... fed up and at the end of his rope.” Fetishes don’t excuse murder. Asian women aren’t temptations for murder. “Bad days” don’t excuse killing innocent people, especially when “bad days” are the daily reality for many. It’s clear these attacks were racially motivated. 

For many Asian immigrants, we share grief for these women we lost. Many of our women run their own businesses in the beauty industry; they are our aunts, mothers, and relatives. Many leave their home countries to start a better one for their families, and work tirelessly to provide for their children and relatives back home. These women were simply taking up their place in society, with values like family and hope at their forefront of their vision. 

Similar attacks have happened on our shores before. On the night of 24 September 1905, Joe Kum Yung, a 68-year-old settler of Canton descent was walking down Haining St, Wellington, when he was fatally shot in the back by Lionel Terry. For years, Yung’s life story was overridden by his killer, a white supremacist, and his manifesto, motives, and mental health. In “How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes” poet Chris Tse gives a voice to Joe Kum Yung by telling his story in a poetry series that details his experience immigrating to New Zealand as a gold miner. It’s a beautiful, honest homage to Joe Kum Yung. His story, like many immigrants, is one full of bravery, love, aspiration and longing. 

Lionel Terry’s sentence was later reduced from death to life imprisonment, on the grounds of insanity. Reports at the time swooned for the murderer: “(he) shot a Chinaman who was too old to care much about his life […] whatever the result of his trial may be, the fact will remain that Lionel Terry is a clever man, who had the courage of his convictions.” Last year, his manifesto, shockingly, was included as a source in the NZQA Level 2 History exam.

Part of our ignorance has to do with the assumption that New Zealand is a nation void of racism or discrimination. However, time and time again, we are seeing proof that this is far from the truth. We’ve seen that in the housing crisis, in parliament, at gyms, malls, and academic institutions. Last weekend, an Instagram story was posted by Netsky, a DJ currently in New Zealand, which showed a few Pākehā party goers on a yacht, making mocking exaggerations of the pukana and the haka. Shanee Lal, co founder of End Conversion Therapy NZ and a prominent youth activist, expressed their frustration on Instagram: “There are more spaces available for rich white people to be racist every day than there are for BIPOC to feel safe in white New Zealand”. It is appalling that this is a country that allows spaces for overt racism to comfortably happen, where BIPOC visibility in Pākehā spaces plays out in the form of overt displays of mockery, condescension, and abuse. It’s this kind of rhetoric that anyone of non-European descent, even Tangata Whenua, are made to feel as if they aren’t really a part of this country. "I was born and raised here”, Sally Han, who was harassed at a festival, told Newshub. “This is my country, this is my home [...] my safety is stripped away because of how I look, but I'm a Kiwi. People look at me like I'm not."  

As a South Asian presenting, half Taiwanese woman, I have the privilege to exist, in some ways, ‘invisible’ to these types of attackers. It’s important to note that the recent wave of harassment crimes are largely affecting East Asian/South East Asian people, fuelled by COVID-related fear-mongering of Chinese people, and the common misconception that “Chinese” is the only kind of Asian. Although I, and other POC’s, cannot fully understand the experience of this type of visibility, we acknowledge that we collectively struggle under the umbrella of colonisation and white supremacy. 

Visibly Asian people are highly alert of their own presence. But we are also highly alert of other Asians. Often Sochetha and I will spot an Asian-appearing student (in any of our Pākehā dominated classes) and feel some sort of silent, familial tie. We ally with them from the sidelines, and we try to hold onto our voices, for each other. I admire Sochetha’s design work, which persistently consists of activism for Asian representation and inclusion.  

Delaina Ashley Yuan, Julie Park, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyeong Jeong Park, Yong A. Yue, Suncha Kim. Six of these women were Asian immigrants. They all represented a distinctly American story. They decided to live there, raise families, start businesses, and make a better life for their families. They loved their kids. They had histories. They were visible members of American society. Hatred tried to make them invisible. 

Visibility is meant to be a form of empowerment. Minari recently won Best Foreign Picture at the Golden Globes, but many went online to express their frustration on why it deserved to be included in the Best Picture category. Due to the majority Korean script, it was counted as a foreign picture film. All too long our languages, experiences, and cultures are otherised, as merely an artistic delight, a delicacy. Our limited celebrated visibility leaves even Asians ourselves questioning whether we are being ungrateful for demanding more inclusion and complaining about our discomfort.

Shockingly, sometimes I wonder whether racism even exists, or if its all in our heads. But when I dig deeper, I think it’s easy to see why I gaslight myself. Racism is both so entrenched and saturated that it sometimes feels like it only exists in the liminal realm of Stuff comments, news clips, historical accounts and not-us’s. When we are uncomfortable, we are taught to not retaliate, be polite, and take up the least amount of space possible. We are taught that our existence—merely being seen—is the catalyst for our shortcomings. Many Asian women feel the need to be invisible to protect themselves, because for them, visibility can be dangerous and deceptive. The most destructive form of racism, however, is the one that is ‘invisible’. The empty bus seat. The exaggerated “social distance”. The “harmless” fetish. The one where even the victim is left wondering whether it is real. Tautoko your Asian friends: listen to their voices, share their stories, support their businesses. We have a lot of work to do.