Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
By Jennie L. Ilustre
Across the country since the start of the year, Asian American healthcare professionals have been in the frontlines fighting the pandemic involving covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.
They are doctors, nurses, hospital support staff, Emergency Medical Technicians or EMTS, and even volunteers.
They are all dedicated and focused on healing their patients, day in and day out, and in longer and longer hours. Yet many of them, particularly doctors and nurses, are subjected to racist remarks, such as “Go back to your country!”
Alarmed at the rising anti-Asian racism, Asian American advocates have started reporting and monitoring websites. In Washington, D.C., Advancing Justice/AAJC’s Stand AgainstHatred.org is accessible in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.
In California, the reporting and monitoring website, www.a3pcon.org/stopaapihate, was launched by the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and San Francisco Asian American Studies Department.
Professor Russell Jeung, Asian American Studies Chair at the San Francisco State University, said there were a total of “2,499 anti-Asian racism incidents” reported to the Stop AAPI Hate website.
Of this figure, 25 incidents of racist remarks or actions “involved Asian American doctors,” and the same figure for Asian American nurses. Some incidents have been referred to the police authorities. (Please scroll down for a specific case involving “Zoom Bombed” racial slurs, which was reported to authorities.)
Professor Jeung stressed: “Anti-Asian racism impacts the entire community, including healthcare professionals. People may believe that Asian American doctors and nurses are the model minority who has attained high educational and career status. Yet, they, too, are shunned and harassed.”
Professionalism
Be that as it may, Asian American doctors and nurses, like all healthcare workers in the country, continue to adhere to the high standards of professionalism.
Community advocate Bing C. Branigin said she was touched at how the nation’s healthcare professionals, including Asian Americans, are laser-focused on treating patients.
”They are stretched to the limit, working long hours,” she said. “And they barely have time to eat, and sometimes, they skip meals altogether.”
“We call them heroes, but the nurses that I know tell me: ‘We are just doing our job, this is the oath we took when we chose this profession,’” she noted.
This writer has also found many are not inclined to give interviews on their work, busy and exhausted as they are, and also avoiding publicity “for just doing our job.”
“The frontliners are not just doctors and nurses,” Branigin added. “They include ambulance drivers and EMTs, hospital aides, cleaners, and also volunteers who are just as dedicated in fighting covid-19.”
Asian American doctors and nurses are particularly vulnerable during the pandemic, because they are directly involved in treating and attending to covid-18 patients.
How many Asian American doctors, nurses have died saving lives? In May, Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose M. Romualdez said 37 Filipino American nurses have died in New Jersey. Professor Jeung said the exact figures “are not available.”
How many Asian American doctors, nurses have been infected? There is no way of knowing the exact figures due to the privacy law, according to the Philippine Nurses Association of Washington DC.
Data and DACA
According to the 2018 figures of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 17.1% of the nation’s physicians are Asians (56.2% are whites). Wikipedia’s 2018 figures show 221,838 are Indian Americans,
Many of the country’s nurses are Filipino Americans. According to wikipedia,”1/3 of all foreign-born nurses in the US are Filipinos.”
A noteworthy fact: Among the people in the frontlines fighting the pandemic are 12,000 Asian and Latino recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA recipients entered the U.S. without authorization when they were children or teenagers.
In 2012, President Obama issued DACA, an executive order. DACA grants a two-year renewable permit to qualified applicants to study and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. A recent Supreme Court decision, while not ruling on the merits of DACA, said the program can continue. That is, until DACA is terminated again by the Trump administration.
There are about 800,000 DACA recipients. Most of them are Latinos. An estimated 16,000 are Asians.
Anti-Asian Racism
In the midst of the pandemic, Asian American advocates are alarmed at the rising anti-Asian racism across the country, involving words and actions, sometimes violent, directed at Asian-looking Americans.
Some of the incidents involve Asian American doctors and nurses. CNN reported a female Asian American doctor was told by her patients, “Go back to your country!” This is a frequent occurrence in many hospitals across the nation.
Professor Jeung, Asian American Studies Chair at the San Francisco State University, said he reviewed the doctor incidents in the Stop AAPI Hate website, “and all but one of the cases occurred at a doctor’s office, but the doctor was not the victim or target of racism.”
He also cited a case where doctors were involved as targets of racism. Professor Jeung’s account follows: “My public health colleagues and I organized a live COVID19 information session for parents from the Chinese-speaking community, with a pediatric doctor from a federally qualified health center based in NYC Chinatown (a community partner of ours) as our speaker.
“Toward the end of the live session, our webinar was ‘Zoom-bombed,’ racial slurs (including ‘ching chong’), phallic symbols, and nonsensical graphics were drawn on the virtual presentation slides in Zoom, while assailants played snippets of music and yelled expletives, racial slurs, and hate speech (‘you guys gave us the coronavirus, f*** you’) across the live audio for all to hear.
“The interruption to our webinar call was traumatic and disturbing to our 135+ community attendees, as well as to my team as event organizers. We have a recording of the full webinar with evidence of this incident and have submitted it to the NYPD and to our institutional communications and security teams.”
Appreciation
On the bright side, there have also been many instances of people in the U.S. and across the world showing their appreciation to healthcare professionals who are in the frontline saving lives during the pandemic.
In the country, ordinary people, even kids, raise money to buy frontline workers PPEs or personal protective gears such as face masks, gloves and face shields. Celebrities donate towards similar causes. Top singers have written songs. A painter is making a series of portraits of doctors and nurses.
Purple Patch DC, a restaurant in the nation’s capital, donates free breakfast to families. Since March 15, ”we have done close to 3,500 meals,” said Chef and Owner Patrice Cleary.
Purple Patch DC also supports a food pack program by Filipino American leaders, who purchase the meal packs and distribute them to area hospital doctors, nurses and other staff. Young people like Rodney Salinas sometimes include wine, to toast “the modern heroes.”
In Britain, Prince William and his wife Kate and three children have led Britons in applauding doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals. A video and photo of them were posted on social media.
And the popular group Queen has recorded a new version of their hit song, “We Are the Champions.” The title of the song has been changed in salute to the healthcare professionals and other workers. The new title? “You Are the Champions.”
