Racism may drive woman to move back to China
`I just feel so unsafe now and worry about my family,' acupuncturist from China says
She was among the first to respond to the PPE needs of front-line health-care workers here during the early stages of the pandemic in March of last year. With other members of the local Chinese community, Wei Li, a Lasalle acupuncturist, helped raise funds to provide over 5,000 gowns, visors and masks for the medical staffs of the Ste-justine, Verdun and Jewish General hospitals and the long-term-care Montreal Chinese Hospital.
Wei Li and her group had another motive in rallying to the COVID -19 cause. They wished to shatter racial stereotypes that had been springing up in Montreal — and around the continent — which were cruelly and ludicrously linking Chinese residents here to the outbreak of the coronavirus. This myth had a major effect, both socially and economically, on the city's Chinese community.
“We are a grassroots group which came together to show we are part of the greater community here, that we are all humans dealing with the same problem. Hopefully we can help send this message to others and to stop some of the misinformation from spreading,” Wei Li said in our Montreal Gazette interview in March 2020.
Sadly, that hasn't been the case. Wei Li has become increasingly more distressed by the wave of anti-asian racism she and many of her friends have been confronting here over the last year. She fears for the well-being of her mother, her Chinese-canadian software-engineer husband and their 30-month-old son, Liam. So much so that, although she has applied to become a Canadian citizen, she is now contemplating a return to her native China.
“I never thought it would reach the point where I wanted to go back again,” she says. “But I just feel so unsafe now and worry about my family.
“I've spent 11 years here, first studying in Quebec City and now working and living in Montreal, and until last year I loved it. Sure, there have been some racist remarks I've received along the way. But most people have been so kind and warm.”
Wei Li, 36, was born in the Sichuan province of Chengdu — “home of the panda.” She spent her first four years here at Quebec City's Université Laval, where she earned her PHD in Physiology and Endocrinology. She had previously graduated from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine with degrees in medicine and acupuncture
“Over the last year of the pandemic, things have really changed here and elsewhere. It's so heartbreaking to hear about Asians, older women and men, being very badly assaulted in the U.S. Now myself and friends here — not just Chinese but Japanese and other Asians — are routinely being attacked with racist remarks and gestures, like people pointing fingers at us pretending they are guns that they are shooting us. It didn't help that the (former) U.S. president (Trump) always referred to COVID as the “China virus.”
“I no longer feel secure on the métro with my son. I worry about my mother going out now. My husband has to drive us everywhere. We feel it's just a matter of time until it gets worse.”
Her anxiety was heightened more recently upon hearing of a story about an Asian woman here who was “refused entry on a bus” a few days ago. Or upon hearing from a Korean friend, who, while lined up at a food store in Little Italy, was told by a male customer in line to go back to where she came from.
“The woman was a lawyer who has lived here for over 30 years since she was a teen. She said she had nowhere to go, that this was her home. I have some Japanese clients, elite athletes, who get yelled at on the métro: `F---ing Chinese! Go back to your country!' So you can imagine how our Chinese elders, so physically vulnerable, must feel. They're scared like never before.
“I am really sorry that this virus originated from my home country, but it is not the fault of Chinese immigrants here. We came to enjoy life and work hard in this country, not to be (targeted) by racists for something that is beyond our control.”
Wei Li has been working pretty steadily through the pandemic.
“I've been trying to help my clients deal with their pain, but for some, their pain is stress and anxiety that comes from dealing with racism.
“It's not the kind of work I ever thought I would be doing. It's so disappointing.”