Congress 2021 blog edition
The Canadian Sociological Association’s “Anti-Asian Racism during the COVID-19 Pandemic” open event webcast explored the rapid and ferocious rise in racism fueled by the spread of COVID-19 around the globe. The panel, including Xiaobei Chen (Carleton University), Cary Wu (York University) and Hijin Park (Brock University), clarified the particularities of anti-Asian racism and its impact on their sense of safety and well-being during the pandemic. Further, they analysed the positionality of Asians in the politics of anti-racism and how it ought to be understood in the context of anti-Black racism, North American settler colonialism, and colonialisms and imperialisms in the Asia Pacific.
Xiaobei Chen, a university professor well-versed in research on racism, colonialism and multiculturalism, started her presentation discussing her recent research on the patterns of existing and emerging stigma and discrimination since the beginning of the pandemic.
“As a Chinese Canadian from Mainland China herself,” Chen noted, “the most alarming issue from my research was the harmful effects of stereotypes. If we do or say anything that does not fit into the image of victims of the Chinese Government, then we are automatically slotted into the category of agents. We are suspected to be working with the Chinese Government.”
Chen concluded that there is a growing need for people to see and understand Asian Canadians on their own terms, rather than through stereotypes, and their range of experiences, relations and beliefs deserve to be heard, understood and accepted.
Cary Wu, the next panelist in the discussion, presented his study on the correlation between racism and the mental health of Asians during the pandemic. According to his findings, after the pandemic started, Asian Canadians and Asian Americans reported poorer mental health. He attributed this mental health decline to the growing anti-Asian racism and concluded that this is a severe issue that must be addressed sooner rather than later.
The panel concluded with a presentation by Hijin Park. Refraining from comparing anti-Black and anti-Asian racism to each other, Park shed light on how white settler colonialism and global capitalism in North America is evident in the ways Asians and Blacks are often construed in opposition to each other.