Five ways North Texans are combatting anti-asian hate in the wake of COVID-19
The coronavirus pandemic ushered in a wave of anti-asian hate, but it also lit a flame in the hearts of many Asian Americans who turned to activism and advocacy in the face of racism.
Anti-asian racism has long existed in U.S. history in the forms of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s, Japanese Americanincarceration during World War II and the racism-fueled murder of Vincent Chin more than 40 years ago in Michigan, to name a few.
Still, the anti-asian incidents and attacks during the outbreak of COVID-19 were a moment of painful reckoning for many in North Texas.
On March 14, 2020, a Midland man attacked an Asian American family, including a 6-year-old, blaming them for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the FBI. On March 16, 2021, a gunman killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women, in a shooting spree in the Atlanta area, sparking rallies nationwide denouncing anti-asian hate. The following year, a gunmaninjured three women of Korean descent after he fired into a hair salon in Dallas’ Koreatown.
Faced with that violence, many Asian Americans got to work.
Entrepreneurs fixed their attention on combatting food insecurity. Advocates focused on preserving historic Asian American stories. Artists channeled their creativity into showcasing their Asian American identity.
Here are five examples of how Asian Americans in North Texas turned to community-building and advocacy in the face of anti-asian hate during the coronavirus pandemic:
Faces of Asian American history
Melody Tian says she didn’t have a hard time “blending in” when she first moved to the U.S. from Shenzhen, China, when she was in sixth grade. Her mother had taught her English, and she made multiple new friends. The rise of anti-asian hate during the COVID-19 outbreak forced her, then a sophomore at The Hockaday School in Dallas, to ask herself some tough questions about her Asian American identity.
“It was like an enlightening experience because it made me see myself in a way that
I’ve never really seen myself,” Tian said.
Tian said she became more aware of microaggressions, such as people’s assumptions about Asian Americans being gifted at math. She also learned about the perception of Asian Americans being foreigners, despite their history in the U.S.
She said she was alarmed by how seldom Asian Americans were represented in school curriculum. She started researching and creating portraits of significant Asian Americans in U.S. history. In the illustrations, she added backgrounds that told stories of the person’s interests and achievements.
The art has been published in a book and featured at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Dallas, blooming into a project called “A Portrait.” Now, she has multiple students across the U.S. submitting portraits, which are shared on the project’swebsite.
“I started this to educate more people and hopefully help people see how Asian Americans have been part of the U.S. for such a long time,” Tian said. “I think just being able to do that has helped me feel more empowered in my own identity.”
Social change through cuisine
Arlington resident Vu Ly, 39, said he and a group of friends from college were talking via a Zoom “happy hour” in 2020, when they started discussing a way to stand against xenophobia against the Asian community amid the pandemic.
They wanted to help local Asian-owned restaurants and create a space where people could share their love for Asian cuisine in North Texas. Ly said he saw a “domino effect” of people joining after they started the Facebook group.
Asian Grub in DFDUB, had more than 59,000 members as of early May, with more than 7,800 followers on Instagram. More than 5,000 people are on the waiting list to join the Facebook group, but the admins are careful about whom they allow in, Ly said.
The mission is to provide a platform for people to share what they like and promote hidden gems. The group held its inaugural food fest last year, and plans to do the same this year, Ly said.
Food creates an “outlet” for people to get together, talk and build empathy, Ly said.
Ly said Asian Grub in DFDUB combats harmful stereotypes by focusing on Asian Americans’ contributions to the region’s food scene.
“Our platform is here to support local southeast and east Asian restaurants and they can use our platform to promote their business and people can post about what they like,” Ly said.
Healing through art Christina Hahn was at a crossroads when she started the Dallas Asian American Art Collective, she said.
Hahn had worked different jobs in multiple industries after graduating from Rice University. She was deeply saddened by the Atlanta spa shootings and other attacks against people of Asian descent during the pandemic.
Hahn was in between jobs when she had the inspiration to start a group for Asian American artists in North Texas. She said she found many Asian Americans who, despite not following an art-related career, were passionate about creating and connecting.
The club started with four people who filled a table at a coffee shop in the Villages neighborhood in Dallas. But it wasn’t long before the group had to pull tables together. By October, the group had enough members to organize an Asian American Halloween and Mid-autumn Festival-themed art market with help from the
Sandwich Hag, a Vietnamese restaurant in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood.
“Being completely surrounded by diverse creatives; it’s so healing. It’s energizing,” Hahn said. “When you’re in a group of people where you don’t need to explain yourself for existing as you are, already you’re living in a place where the atmosphere and the oxygen levels are set for you.”
As of early-may, the group had more than 960 followers on Instagram. Dozens of people attend regular meetings and the group’s Discord channel has more than 140 members, Hahn said.
Members of the art club helped prepare for the Dallas Asian American Historical Society’s exhibit on the city’s early Chinese restaurants. The club also launched “food-zines,” which are publications that feature artwork from club members.
Hahn, now working with Austin-based advocacy group Asian Texas for Justice, said art can be a vehicle for communicating complex ideas, such as those related to Asian American experiences.
“Not to say that proving our Texan-ness, or American-ness is on us, but from a storytelling perspective, from a messaging perspective, I think that’s where art is really powerful,” Hahn said.
Community service for thought
James Huang said the Nihao Food Bank Initiative was inspired by multiple goals, including combating negative perceptions related to the Asian American community.
“On the onset of the pandemic, we wanted to send a message that we were trying to combat something negative,” Huang said. “It was basically a combination of the pandemic and the desire, and also the challenges we feel in the community.”
Huang said he and several board members of the U.s.-china Chamber of Commerce Dallas had been discussing ways to harness the resources of the Chinese American community in North Texas and impact positive community change. News coverage of a North Texas Food Bank Thanksgiving food distribution event left a strong impression on him and the other members, Huang said.
“That was really one of the triggers that made us want to do something with food, because we hadn’t realized it was such a dire situation,” he added.
The Nihao initiative has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and collected thousands of food items for the North Texas Food Bank. In April, Nihao worked with other local organizations to host its third 5K for hunger awareness. On Saturday, the group partnered with the Royal Music Academy to host a charity concert at the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center at the Greenhill School in Addison to raise money for the North Texas Food Bank.
The group also created a youth volunteer program in 2021 that now includes hundreds of students. CY Chen, one of the cofounders of Nihao, said he thinks the program teaches the younger members of his community the value of giving back.
“You can feel a change happen in the kids,” Chen said.
Healing community with history
Stephanie Drenka said a quote from Asian American author Maxine Hong Kingston acted as a mantra for her when she started the Dallas Asian American Historical Society in 2022: “In a time of destruction, create something.”
Although she was not new to advocacy work, she said she saw a dire need during the pandemic for Asian American history to be preserved in Dallas.
“At that point, it did feel like the Asian community was under attack, and it was a chance to channel that into something that can help us mobilize and fight anti-asian hate,” Drenka said. “We knew that education was the biggest resource in terms of combating anti-asian hate.”
The organization’s nonprofit status became official in April 2022 and, by July, it debuted its first-ever exhibit at Dallas’ Wilson House, highlighting the city’s early Chinese restaurant scene. This year, the society expects to present its “Hear Me Roar” documentary project, which was spearheaded by Denise Johnson, a co-founder of the organization.
“There is a lot of historical work being done today that needs to be captured so that the next generation has what they need,” Drenka said.