Yuanyuan Zhu was in the gym in San Francisco on March 9, as he was about to do his last workout, a man started yelling at him, offending her about the epidemic that broke out in China.
She immediately left the gym and headed for the bus stop. It was followed by the same "screamer" who, behind the crosswalks, invited motorists to run over the Chinese girl. Taking advantage of the darkness he then spat on her face and on her favorite sweater. The news was reported in the New York Times.
26-year-old Zhu, who moved to the United States from China five years ago, is still in shock. In an America grappling with the pandemic, there are numerous verbal and physical acts of racism against Asian-Americans, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino families, Myanmar and other countries.
Asians surveyed said they were afraid when shopping, traveling alone on the subway or bus, or getting their children out. The same situations that occurred in America, against Muslims, close to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are repeating themselves.
But unlike 2001, when President George W. Bush sensitized tolerance for American Muslims, this time President Trump is using language that according to Asians and some Americans is generating hatred and racial intolerance.
Trump and most of the Republicans have for days been talking about coronavirus as "the Chinese virus", rejecting the indications of the World Health Organization against the misuse of the geolocation of diseases.
However, Trump said yesterday at a press conference that he was calling it a "Chinese" virus to combat the disinformation campaign carried out by Beijing officials who have indicated American soldiers as spreaders of the virus.
Trump also sent back to the sender the accusations that his communication could cause problems of intolerance, reiterating the concept in a tweet: "It is very important to totally protect our Asian American community in the United States".
Although precise numbers do not yet exist, some researchers say that there has been a surge in the wave of intolerance for racial purposes, fortunately just whispered in the newspapers to date. By contrast, San Francisco State University experienced a 9% increase in the number of articles and news on anti-Asian discrimination between February 7 and March 50.
Although we are still at the beginning of the phenomenon, the New York Times writes, arms purchases by Americans of Asian origin have increased.