Back to News

Hate spreads with virus

Communication Arts professor Lori Lopez reminds us of the cost of hatred and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

by Aaron R. Conklin March 24, 2020
Share

The ongoing global pandemic has disrupted lives around the globe, causing deep fear and uncertainty in communities. 

And, unfortunately, in some cases, that fear has translated into hateful behavior against Asian Americans, especially since some government officials have begun referring to the disease as the “Chinese virus.”   Across the country, some Asian Americans have been shunned and physically attacked.  Even on the UW campus, the Badger Herald shared reports of Asian American students experiencing discriminatory behavior and harassment.  Just this week, an individual scrawled the phrase "It's from China: #ChineseVirus" on a curb at the base of State Street. 

Lopez: We should be working to combat dangerous rhetoric and protect everyone from harm. 

That’s troubling—but not surprising—to Lori Lopez, a professor of communication arts who studies bias against Asian Americans and other underrepresented groups. She’s deeply aware of the cost and damage that come with targeting ethnic groups.

“We should all be concerned about unfairly blaming a group of humans for this pandemic, because it causes more hatred, violence and loss of life,” says Lopez. “We should be working to combat dangerous rhetoric and protect everyone from harm.”

As Lopez points out, this isn’t the first time this has happened. The U.S. has a long and troubled history with xenophobic behavior toward Asian Americans, including Chinese immigrants. In 1882, the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, a piece of legislation based on fears that immigrants would bring contamination and disease into the country, in addition to threatening jobs.

“These racist characterizations and assumptions have contributed to longstanding fears that have always positioned Asian Americans as inferior second-class citizens, and made them feel like unwelcome outsiders no matter how many generations they have lived in the U.S,”  says Lopez, whose Japanese American grandparents survived their experience in a labor camp during World War II.  

In recent years, other groups have been singled out by U.S. policies that, in turn, stoke xenophobia, including a 2017 U.S. order suspending the entry of foreign nationals from seven countries with largely Muslim populations; deportations and detainments of immigrants from Mexico, Central and Latin America; and new limits on the number of refugees allowed into the country.

The news is not entirely discouraging. Lopez has been heartened by the many positive responses she’s seen to anti-Asian hate, including the Twitter hashtag #WashTheHate, in which Asian Americans are filming and sharing videos of themselves washing their hands and talking about experiences of racism.  In Madison, Southeast Asian American leaders and advocates from Freedom, Inc., a nonprofit that works to prevent violence toward women and people of color, have been supporting individuals whose lives are impacted by issues exacerbated by COVID-19, such as domestic violence and housing and wage insecurity. Lopez has also appreciated the attention that the non-Asian American community and political leaders have brought to the harmful rhetoric. Politicians and journalists from both sides of the political aisle have spoken out about the issue.

“This kind of alliance and signal-boosting can go a long way toward supporting Asian Americans and will help us all come together to form long-term solutions, rather than leaving minority groups to solve their own problems amidst this crisis,” Lopez says.