United States has seen a rise in racist slurs and violence against Asian American health-care workers. The Washington Post reported, “The racial hostility has left Asian Americans, who represent 6 percent of the U.S. population but 18 percent of the country’s physicians and 10 percent of its nurse practitioners in a painful position on the frontlines of the response to coronavirus pandemic.”
Patients are refusing to get treated by the Asian American doctors. An Asian American studies department at San Francisco said that women are more vulnerable from the racist abuses than men. There have been around 1,800 reports of spat on, stabbing and prohibition in cab services incidents against Asian Americans.
This is a culmination of Trump’s rhetoric around the virus and China which has contributed to the rise in racial harassment. Trump has allegedly referred to the virus as the “Chinese virus”.
Lucy Li, an anesthesiology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital said, “I’m risking my own personal health, and then to be vilified just because of what I look like.”
Many fear that the violence against Asian Americans will grow in coming months with incessant China-bashing and with the stagnation of economy. The Asian American health-workers are continuously referred as bat eaters. Health-workers are grilled by the patients, who ask questions regarding their medical education, work history and ethnicity.
Link to the original article-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/19/asian-american-discrimination/
