Hello and welcome back! This blog post we will investigate some of the issues immigrants have faced that arose during the pandemic. While we have slowly been fighting against the prejudices immigrants face over the years, much of our work as a nation was set back due to Covid.
As I am sure most of us know, since the beginning of the pandemic people have looked for someone to place the blame on. As evidence of the virus originating from China came out, many Americans began to ridicule China, and some even turned to violence against immigrants. Click here to read an article highlighting some of these violent acts. This article also gives statistics demonstrating this increase. Another article specifies that anti-Asian crime increased by 150% in 16 different cities in the year 2020. Click here to read that article. Because of these very clear statistics, many have begun to follow the Stop Asian Hate movement.
Stop Asian Hate
This movement was widely popularized in 2021 after people began to witness the intense amounts of discrimination and violence that Asian people experienced during 2020. Individual states began hosting their own rallies to unite with the Asian Americans and immigrants in their communities. Click here to learn more about the movement and rallies.
Prejudiced Politics
One of the other factors that lead to the amplification of hate crimes targeted at Asians was the political atmosphere in 2020. Whether intentional or not, former president Donald Trump was one of the biggest instigators of this fight. Along with spreading false information about Covid-19, he also coined the name “The China Virus” for it. Not only is this name very clearly disrespectful, but it also perpetuated the idea in people’s heads that Asians were the ones to blame. Here is a tweet of Donald Trumps which gives an example of his use of the inappropriate name the “China Virus”.
Other Effects
The pandemic has not only affected Asian Americans and immigrants. Many immigrants had interruptions of instability in their lives during 2020. Over the early months of the pandemic, many people lost their jobs; however, the unemployment rate for immigrant workers went up to nearly 34% higher than American born workers. Along with losing more jobs, many more immigrants do not have access to health insurance compared to native Americans.
Overall, my final thoughts are that many more steps need to be taken to prevent this level of discrimination from happening. Violence should never be the answer, but especially when it is racially motivated.
This is a great issue you touched on! The problems from the pandemic, especially Asian hate crimes, are a large problem that needs to be addressed. I like how you structured the blog by defining the problems and then analyzing them. I also like how the information was displayed and conveyed because it made the blog a lot more readable and engaging.
I’ve seen my own friends being harmed by the anti-Asian slander during the pandemic, so it’s great you highlighted this problem. I’m also glad you mentioned the issue of immigrant job sustainability because the pandemic certainly caused job loss, but this issue only gets highlighted through the perspective of American citizens instead of encompassing the immigrant perspective as well.
This was a profound blog. I actually attended a vigil for victims of violence against Asian Americans, and the messaging from the Stop Asian Movement certainly resonates with me. The misinformation of COVID-19 topics was also deadly, to be quite literate. I never thought injecting bleach would fix the disease and the fact our president said that at the time is appalling.