Brace yourselves fellow Asians, the “yellow peril” has officially resurfaced.

The ongoing news of coronavirus cases, including two identified in Toronto, has triggered a firestorm of racist trolls against Asian communities.

A simple search on Twitter can shed light on the dark side. Take this top comment on a New York Times tweet on coronavirus: “I’m trying to keep an open mind like, it’s ok that these cultures like to eat strange things. Meanwhile I am thinking...filthy godless people spreading disgusting diseases via their lust for foul foods... No wonder it took them 1,000 years to (almost) join the modern world...”

Sometimes, it’s turned into an insensitive joke, just like one tweeted by a CTV reporter that shows a selfie with a Chinese hairdresser wearing a mask. The caption reads “Hopefully ALL I got today a haircut. #Coronaoutbreak #Coronavirustoronto.” The tweet has since been removed, and the reporter has apologized for “insensitivity,” but for someone who takes their role as a reporter seriously, reporting the news without bias, to have made a joke for “likes” hurts their credibility.

And then there are photos — like those that accompany stories of coronavirus on BlogTO that show generic images of people shopping inside a Chinese grocery store. It’s as if the editors were OK with simply Googling an image inside any T&T or Chinatown grocery market and attaching it to any story on coronavirus to simply drive clicks — without thinking of what that would do to these businesses.

As journalists, we pride ourselves on responsible reporting. Yet, when reporting on the Asian-Canadian population, who make up the largest and fastest growing visible minority group, it seems that all those values fly out the window. What adds to it is the ignorance of grouping all Asian populations regardless of nationality into one large generalized blob, now all under the microscope of fear and contagion.

To many Asian-Canadians, this comes as no surprise. We’re often all lumped together, and the idea of “yellow peril” — a racist stereotype that generalizes Asians as unsanitary, lower-class, and alien is embedded in our nation’s history. From the 1885 Chinese head tax, which sought to deter immigrants from coming to Canada, to Japanese internment camps during the war, to a range of discriminatory laws that deterred Chinese people from the vote until 1947 — we’ve been there, done that.

But perhaps the flashback that reverberates most closely during this time of chaos is the 2003 SARS-outbreak. Hundreds of people, including 44 Canadians, were killed by the virus. Yet the tragedy was overshadowed by the alienation and fear citizens had of Asian communities. Toronto’s three Chinatowns remained empty for weeks. Asian businesses suffered. Even former prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien publicly ate at Chinese restaurants on Spadina during this time in hopes to send a message to the public that it was safe.

My memory of SARS was constantly being asked by classmates and strangers if I had the virus — despite that fact that I could in no way have come in contact with the illness. I had to keep proving to others that I was “whiter” than what they saw as Asians by throwing out my Chinese lunches that my mom would pack or never clearing my throat when I needed to. But that didn’t stop people from avoiding my mother and me in public spaces. It became so common that, in order not to inconvenience others, I would steer clear of walking past people in close proximity so I could avoid an uncomfortable situation of them wanting to avoid me without seeming racist. All this, as a child in Grade 3, just hoping to seem invisible to others so I could avoid a racist person screaming “SARS” at me or my family.

But now, more than 15 years later, it seems that the lessons we had hoped to learn haven’t been resolved and are rather amplified by our digital world. We, as Asians, are still being asked if we eat dogs and bats, and now more so than ever on social media. We see comments on people wanting to close up borders to our communities. And even when wanting to protect ourselves by wearing masks, we’re targets of misinformed stories that apparently add to the panic of the pandemic spreading.

The most unfortunate part of the fear-mongering is the lack of attention on the real lives impacted — especially when they’re separated by a screen spewing out hate by the second. In this misinformed mess, there are Asian-Canadian business owners bracing for the backlash of losing business. Those that are worried for loved ones back home. Families separated from one another during Lunar New Year — a time of celebration and happiness shrouded by this lethal virus.

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