Just like most people, my phone charges on my nightstand overnight. The moment I wake up, I instinctively reach for it, still wrapped in the cozy warmth of my bed. With bleary eyes, I dive into my inbox to check personal emails, reply to texts, skim through news updates, and lose myself in the endless scroll of Instagram and Facebook to catch up on what’s been happening while I was asleep.
Before diving into my workday and managing my company’s social media accounts, I always take a moment to catch up on my own feeds.
It might not be the healthiest habit, but it’s one I share with countless others—this familiar ritual of reaching for my phone. Innocuous, universal, and utterly unremarkable… until it isn’t.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, what once felt like a simple, mundane morning routine has transformed into something far more unsettling. As my Facebook feed slowly loads, a familiar wave of anxiety begins to unfurl deep within me. My heart quickens, my breath tightens, and a heavy weight settles in my chest. Each new post feels like a looming threat, another potential assault on my peace of mind.
And I know I’m not alone in this. Pandemic conspiracies are running rampant as people grow weary of quarantine’s grip, retreating further into their own echo chambers. Political rants, misinformation, and finger-pointing have only gotten louder, as frustrations mount and people lash out in the face of a world that feels increasingly out of control.
But here’s the thing: I’m a first-generation Chinese American with an ethnic name. And to an alarmingly large number of my fellow citizens—something made painfully clear during this recent divisive election—I’ve become part of the problem.
Beyond the anxiety over my own health, as someone vulnerable due to an autoimmune condition, beyond the constant worry for my immunocompromised family members, and the growing fear for my career as a writer in two industries hit hardest by the pandemic—travel and food—I’ve had the added burden of apology. A weight I never signed up for. The unspoken responsibility to defend an entire community of people, to whom I, as an ABC (American-born Chinese), have only ancestral ties.
It all began with the damaging label “Chinese virus.” When President Donald Trump repeatedly used that term, it became a weapon, a target painted squarely on the back of one minority group. In April, I posted a simple request on my personal Facebook: ask your friends to stop using that phrase. A small act of defiance, yet it felt monumental in the face of such widespread ignorance.
It quickly ignited a firestorm.
Extended family members, people who had once welcomed me with open arms, unleashed a barrage of hateful words in defense of our president. They were convinced that my plea was nothing more than an attack on him. “If you don’t like it here, then leave,” they said. It’s a phrase I’ve heard far too many times in my life, but never from the very people who had once invited me into their homes for Sunday dinners—people I’d celebrated with, mourned with, and shared so many moments of life.
What stung even more was the silence from those I considered friends. They couldn’t or wouldn’t understand why I was upset by this label. They refused to acknowledge how dangerous it was to scapegoat an entire culture for a virus. They didn’t want to hear about how that same rhetoric could put all Asians in danger, or why I feared that the same kind of “patriotic vigilante justice” that targeted people of Middle Eastern descent after 9/11 could easily turn its eye toward my family—or me.
In short, they made it clear they didn’t want to hear me as a human being. Deeply shaken and exhausted, I turned off my notifications.
Although much of this toxicity began in the virtual world, as I’d feared, it didn’t stay there. The pandemic fueled a frightening surge in violence against Asians—targeting individuals, their businesses, and entire communities. In Canada, Chinatowns were defaced, and temples were desecrated. Across America, Asian Americans—whether of Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese descent, or others—were spat on, harassed, and physically attacked in broad daylight, in streets, and even in parking lots. As infection rates soared, so did the instances of workplace discrimination, with Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) reporting up to 100 cases a day in March alone, during a passionate appeal on MSNBC to stop using the term “Chinese virus.”
The website Stop AAPI Hate, dedicated to tracking anti-Asian American discrimination, logged over 2,500 physical or verbal assaults between March and August. Social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter issued statements to Al Jazeera acknowledging the abuse and urging users to report it.
Even in October, following Trump’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis, anti-Asian rhetoric and conspiracy theories saw a staggering 85% spike on Twitter, a chilling reminder that this hostility is not just lingering—it’s cyclical. Tensions flared once more as Asians around the world urgently cried out for recognition, desperately demanding the simple acknowledgment that #IAmNotAVirus.
In line with the “model minority” stereotype, many Asian victims of hate-motivated crimes or harassment choose to stay silent, brushing off these incidents as the unfortunate but expected toll of living in a country marred by systemic racism. Commander William Slaton of the Pennsylvania State Police has suggested that this reluctance to report could stem from a mix of factors: “fear of embarrassment, lack of community support, and the belief that law enforcement won’t take their concerns seriously.”
As a first-generation Chinese-American woman living in a predominantly white neighborhood, I’ve learned that prejudice is simply the price of entry, a regrettable but accepted reality. To voice frustration about it was seen as weakness, to demand justice was to risk being labeled a community troublemaker, and to draw attention to it only placed a target not just on your family, but on your entire people. The unspoken rule was clear: keep your head down, your mouth shut, and let your hard work and perseverance be your proof of worth.
In our collective effort to uphold the “model minority” myth, we deceive ourselves into believing that racism has faded away in the generations since our ancestors arrived. We convince ourselves that any incidents of hate we face are simply isolated, the unfortunate result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person—never fueled by hate, never rooted in systemic discrimination.
And, of course, friends don’t want to confront the reality that those they care about can be reduced to nameless, faceless targets. Who wants to carry that weight, especially when they themselves insist they “don’t see color” or “don’t think of [you] ‘that’ way,” as I’ve seen in comments on Facebook walls?
…Which, of course, is one of the many reasons that opening my social media feeds has become such a struggle.
Tokenization is a constant battle for people of color, and as the world seems to pull further into a blur of gray areas, it’s disheartening to watch well-meaning people, who claim to be allies, use phrases like “But I have an XYZ friend” to signal their progressive values and open-mindedness.
I couldn’t help but wonder: Am I the Asian friend? Am I the person they’re talking about when they say, “I know someone who’s with a Chinese person, and they would never…?” Have I been reduced to Exhibit A in a performative attempt to prove tolerance?
Sometimes, I take half a Xanax before bed. I do so with caution, knowing all too well the addictive grip it can have.
I wait until the quiet hum of anxiety begins to pulse through me, just enough to make the hairs on my arms stand on end, and sleep becomes elusive. I’m fixated on some trivial, probably insignificant reason that has my mind racing in panic.
Months into this pandemic, I still find myself faced with an unrelenting stream of anxiety-inducing triggers every time I scroll through social media. It’s a cycle of helplessness and voicelessness. The angry, finger-pointing post I’m too afraid to engage with. The careless comment or joke from someone who forgets they have a Chinese “friend” on their list. The well-meaning but patronizing attempts of people trying to walk the fine line between being a white savior or a true ally. The “fact”-shamers on both the left and the right, locked in their ideological echo chambers, unwilling to hear each other or acknowledge the real, human suffering in front of them.
It’s emotional labor just to be exposed to this, and when your job revolves around communications and social media, it’s unavoidable. I find myself stumbling across posts I can’t respond to, reading things I can’t refute. I’m exposed to the kind of “behind closed doors” rhetoric on corporate feeds—spouted by racist brand followers who think they’re safe in the anonymity of a company account. After all, it’s just a faceless entity, neutral and professional, right?
So I swallow my outrage, bite my tongue, and let it eat away at me, powerless to do anything but try to push it down, to make space for hope, for light, for something better.
But every night, I’m exhausted. Every night, I’m drained. And yet, every morning, I steel myself, my heart in my throat, and I click my phone on again.