Anti-Asian sentiment. Plus the importance of racial data about COVID-19
In our first podcast interview, California Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-19th District, talked with us about anti-Asian sentiment because of this pandemic. Welcome to Race and Coronavirus We are reporters and editors with decades of journalism experience between us. Levi, pictured on the left, spent most of her career at the San Jose Mercury News and has specialized in technology and business news. Pati, at right, is editor in chief at San Francisco magazine and has been a demographics editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, among other places. As longtime storytellers, we know we are in the middle of one of the biggest stories of our lives. Race and Coronavirus is going to address something close to our hearts: tracking the effects of this pandemic on minorities and immigrants. Because even though we keep hearing that COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate, we also know that in the United States, black and brown people are being disproportionately affected on many different levels. We’re talking with those who are being impacted, plus the people who are trying to help them. We’re having conversations with experts, advocacy groups, newsmakers and news gatherers. Each week, we will bring those conversations to you along with related stories that delve deeper into the issues we discussed. Here’s a link to our first post and podcast, where we talk more about why we started Race and Coronavirus. (And our newsletter won’t always be this long. We just wanted to introduce ourselves!) Asians bear brunt of COVID-19 blame By Levi Sumagaysay Lifelong San Francisco resident Sandy Fong-Navalta was on Muni recently, heading home from work when she witnessed a white male yell at an elderly Asian man for being a "rude, f---ing ignorant Chinaman." The Asian man had put his hand up when someone got too close to him on the bus. “You’re the reason coronavirus came to America!” the white male continued in response to the elderly man’s gesture. Fong-Navalta, whose sister-in-law is Race and Coronavirus co-founder Pati Navalta, said she has witnessed or felt tension in San Francisco quite a bit since the first reports of coronavirus -- a homeless man recently told her she was “spreading the corona” -- and that it has come “to the point where I’m almost desensitized to it.” As some people blame the rise of coronavirus on China, where it originated, the FBI has warned about a possible rise in hate crimes against Asians in the United States. Businesses owned by Asian Americans are being vandalized. Some Asian Americans are literally arming themselves in case they are physically assaulted, like an Asian family that was stabbed at a Sam’s Club in Texas in March, reportedly because of coronavirus. And advocacy groups, policymakers and others are having to dole out advice on how to deal with it all. Also in San Francisco in early March, Yuanyuan Zhu was on her way to the gym when a white male in his 40s who “looked like a regular person” spat on her after he shouted “F--- China.” He also yelled at a passing bus to “run ‘them’ over.” She told her story on social media and to the New York Times, but she recently told it again to journalists who tuned in for a recent online press conference held by Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department, which have teamed up on Stop AAPI Hate, a website where people can submit anti-Asian incidents. In the four weeks since the site was created, it had collected nearly 1,500 reports — and by Tuesday, that number was up to 1,716, according to Chinese for Affirmative Action SF spokesman Eugene Lau. “I was panicked,” Zhu said. “I just walked faster and into my gym.” She said it was “hard to imagine that this would happen in the Bay Area,” which is known for its diversity, and that it’s important to speak up and collect data about what’s happening. Russell Jeung, he
