One Year After the Atlanta Spa Shooting, UNC’s Asian American Community Stands Strong with Solidarity

 

UNC leaders celebrate the opening of the Asian American Center. Source: Caroline Bittenbender | The Daily Tar Heel

Lynx Yuan is tired. The political committee member of the Asian American Student Association (AASA) is tired of Asian Americans facing perpetual and systemic stereotypes. She is tired of society forcing Asian Americans to mold into predetermined constraints. She is tired of the media portraying Asian American women as weak, demure, and submissive. She is tired of Asian Americans being seen as objects. It was this very same hypersexualization that fueled the March 16 Atlanta spa shootings, where a shooter killed eight individuals – including six Asian American females. The attacks sparked a nationwide reckoning over the societal insidious and pernicious “otherization” of Asian Americans, who have faced a 339% increase in hate crimes due to COVID-19. Indeed, despite the “American” in the name, history treated this demographic group as perpetual foreigners in their home country. With an impending Yellow Peril and Red Scare spreading tendrils of fear across the United States, modern society must not support or amplify the dehumanization of the past. 

From the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act to the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, government-sponsored racism of Asian Americans taints national history. Racist-infused policies inevitably impact public opinion, evidenced by the murder of Vincent Chin, the Bellingham riots, the Los Angelos Massacre of 1871, the Watsonville Riots, the 2001 Dallas shootings, the 2017 Olathe Kansas shooting – the list is harrowingly long. Thus, the prior horrifying government orders leave reverberating effects that persist, while social crimes entrench false perception of Asian Americans and incentivize society to pick up pitchforks and matchsticks over handshakes and welcomes. When interviewing Lynx, she highlighted the Page Act of 1875, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese and Japanese women due to the illusion that Asian American women were all tied to sex work. “This was a strategy to keep the Chinese out of the U.S,” Lynx explains. “Now, people see Asian American women as objects, as something to dominate.” This growing perception may metastasize until an event similar to the Atlanta spa shooting happens. 

Dr. Amin, the Associate Director of the UNC Asian American Center extends this idea, explaining that “Hollywood reinforces stereotypes about Asian women, turning them into dragon ladies or lotus blossoms.” Additionally, the concept of intersectionality, defined as when overlapping and interdependent social identities create heightened levels of discrimination, provides further clarification. Lynx explains how intersectionality creates unacknowledged “layers of discrimination” and that Asian American women are seen as demure, submissive, and quiet because they are both women and Asian, creating a dangerous “China doll effect.” But, Asian women are not toys – not a doll to wind up, not a car to smash, not a teddy bear to shred. 


Yet, the causes of Asian American hate crimes are not solely relegated to laws passed during the 1800s. Many causes are modern misconceptions that lack explicit and blatant racism but leave implicit microaggressions to kill by a thousand paper cuts. The model minority myth – the warped idea that Asian Americans have universal success, especially in academics – is a common yet often overlooked example of this phenomenon. Specifically, Dr. Amin describes how myth not only “imposes parameters” on Asian Americans, but “it takes people for granted and leads to the expectation that people should demand the labor of POCs.” For many Asian Americans, their parents immigrated to the United States in search of their American Dream. To capture this Gatsby-esque green light, they worked their fingers to the bone to prove their loyalty. They burned the midnight oil studying English to assimilate. They became the economic ghostwriters to show that they are not parasitic weeds but merely grafted shoots. Yet, their efforts prove elusive at securing whatever element is needed to become ‘American’ when their labor is expected as their rent and downpayment to live in America. This expectation directly cracks the pillars of the American dream like an eggshell – simply put, how can one achieve the “American Dream” if others refuse to perceive them as American? In essence, the model minority myth not only ties an Asian American's worth to their academic success and economic productivity, but also engenders a racial power imbalance. 

Despite these challenges, the University AAPI community remains strong. At UNC, the multitude of Asian cultural clubs, ranging from the Vietnamese Student Association to Sangam to Flying Silk, creates an opportunity for students from diverse backgrounds to find identity and community. For example, the Asian American provides countless resources, including programs on the experience of Asian Americans in the South, Wednesday forums directed by the student leadership team, to a K-12 writing group that plans Asian American history lessons for local schools. Notably, the AAC has a Fellows Program to bring in groundbreaking Asian studies scholars, artists, and community organizers to hold discussions and workshops with students. The multitude of resources creates vibrant representation for Asian voices on campus and promotes camaraderie between Asian students. Indeed, Lynx explains that “I have not witnessed the otherization of Asians here at UNC because there is such a large Asian American population here to the point where if an Asian student wanted to find an accepting Asian community, they could do so. After all, it is quite accessible and pretty observable.” Even when the UNC Asian Americans community face hate, people unite in solidarity, evidenced by the February 16 Zoombombing attack on an Asian mental health event directed by the AAC. “We managed to kick the Zoombombers out of the meeting. CAPs helped out, and people stayed behind to stay supportive and follow up with each other,” Dr. Amin details, further stating that “We are here to build community and show that people are not alone.” 

National political tensions may blow headwinds toward AAPI communities, but UNC remains steadfast. Asian American students refuse to become an ‘other’ – they refuse to be perceived as foreigners, visitors, or traitors. Instead, they seek to coalesce and promote solidarity. In a statement after the Zoombombing attack, Dr. Heidi Kim, the AAC Director, flawlessly encapsulates the University mood: “Rather than giving their hate another platform by describing it, I want to tell you how motivating it was to see our community rally on the call. This is why we are here, and no attacks will stand in our way.” 


Resources:

Asian American Center

Asian American Student Association

Contact: uncaasa@gmail.com

 
Fellows, Editor's PicksMichelle LiuStop Asian Hate, Asian Americans, Campus Issues, Racial Equity, Editor's PickComment