Transcriber: Antonio Reis Reviewer: Sam-Haendell W. THOSIAC
John Kim, Jessica de Maliana,
Ron Twacin, Gnook Fem, Steve Quangchen,
Manti Te’o, and Paco.
What do these people have in common?
If you’ve been paying attention to the news,
you may have seen them in headlines
as victims of increasing violence against Asians and Asian Pacific Americans.
Hate crimes and racism towards Asian-Americans have increased
by 1,900 percent since the start of the COVID-19 Pandamic.
And the fact that these names could, one day, be of my family,
my loved ones or my friends terrifies me beyond words.
At a ripe age of 19, I feel that I'm slowly
and finally becoming more aware of my uniqueness as
an Asian-American individual. It certainly was not easy.
Nor did I make it easy for myself.
While growing up, I was always told to respect my culture,
to embrace my history, and to feel proud for being Asian American.
However, I'll be honest with you all.
Constantly being the only Asian American girl in my classrooms,
being one out of 15 Asian students in my graduating class.
Made it extremely hard to do so.
I grew up in a bubble where my community, my peers and my friends were not Asian.
Not only did I experience racism repeatedly during my elementary to high
school years, but sometimes I was also part of the problem
and made stereotypical Asian jokes to those around me.
I mean, to all of you Asians listening to this,
I’m sure at one point you’ve heard these phrases.
“You’re Asian, aren’t you supposed to be good at math?”
“Is it true that you all like eating cats and dogs?”
“Aren’t you the race that eats those weird animals all the time?”
These were times I recall other students mocking Asian accents
and me laughing along. Pulling their eyes back and me doing the same to be funny.
Saying that I ate rats and turtles and me saying,
“You better watch your pets because I’ll eat yours.”
Sending me videos of people mocking Asian cultures and calling it “comedy”.
And so much more.
These racist behaviors became so prevalent in my life,
and I failed to realize how damaging it was to have allowed it to exist in
the first place. What is possibly even more embarrassing is that it took
the onset of the pandemic for me to realize that racism was
so normalized throughout my life and that
I simply never cared to do anything about it.
Not only did I fail to respect myself.
But I failed to follow my parents teachings.
Right at the onset of COVID 19 was when I started to see
the uptake of anti-Asian sentiments, but not only that,
I was shocked to see how widespread and public these sentiments became.
Nowadays, not a day goes by without a new story about elderly Asians
and Asian Americans being assaulted or our communities’
businesses being vandalized, left and right.
In my own city, five minutes away from me,
there is a time where a Chinese takeout restaurant's front was spray painted
with terrible racist phrases and even had its windows completely shattered.
My family and I grew increasingly alarmed,
a terrified now wondering if it'll be safe to leave the comforts of our home,
to live our regular lives outside. Or not.
I believe it's well beyond the time for change. But we do need a start.
The Asian model minority myth has conditioned us to go with
the status quo to remain passive in silence.
But us as a community, we are so much more than that and we can do
so much more than that.
If you are a non-Asian or not Asian American,
I can recommend some ways for you to be allies.
Understand the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Be more mindful of stereotypes perpetuated in the Asian community
and in the media. Support local businesses.
Check in on your friends and see how they're doing.
But most importantly, this doesn't just end with Asian communities.
We must continue to support all communities and all races,
because when we all support one another, we all prosper.
Now, for those who are Asian or Asian American. Stand out.
Speak up and fight back. Embrace your culture and embrace your uniqueness.
Look out for one another. Us, as a community,
we will not tolerate what's happening in the world right now.
Not only must we continue to spread knowledge and awareness for
the rise of violence towards our community,
but our common goal should be unnormalizing all forms of hate
and racism. Hate for generations have continued to take innocent lives
and hard work away from us.
And the more we let hate prosper,
the more humanity tends to stray away from our morals.
So I end with this.
Let us come together and fight for a safer community.
Let us come together and fight against all forms of hate.
But most of all, let us come together to fight
for good fortunes like our elders have previously taught us,
not only for our future families.
But for generations, who will soon enough take our place in the world.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.