“If you look at social media and some of the news, it’s fear of the ‘Yellow Peril’ all over again,” says Jeung, referring to a term that gained traction after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. “‘Coughing while Asian’ is like ‘driving while black,’ something you get stereotyped for.”
Although San Francisco’s Asian-American history dates back to the Gold Rush of the 1850s, Jeung says since the coronavirus scare hit U.S. shores he has seen non-Asians move away from Asian-Americans who are coughing or wearing masks. “The masks are there out of courtesy, but instead they’re viewed in other ways,” he says…
South Korean restaurant owners have displayed “No Chinese allowed” signs and Japanese Twitter users made the hashtag #ChineseDontComeToJapan trend. In Singapore, more than 125,000 people have signed a petition urging the government to ban Chinese nationals from entering the city-state.
