The Dirty “COVID-Causer”

Believe it or not, Asian-Americans are not the primary, or the only, cause of COVID-19 in the United States. Though this is excruciatingly obvious to the majority of people, there is a percentage of people who live and dwell in uncontrollable hatred toward Asian-American “COVID-Causers”.

In November 2019, I remember scrolling through the New York Times’ home page and reading about a new, mysterious, and unnamed coronavirus spreading throughout China. This did not faze me very much because most disease outbreaks fizzle up and die a few days or weeks after they first spring up. However, over the next couple of weeks, I read about the first case of COVID (at the time named SARS-CoV-2) in the United States, then the second, then the third, each with its own news article dedicated to that person’s life and experiences as a traveler to foreign countries. I had become addicted to reading these reports, and reading COVID news was one of the few reasons I decided to buy a New York Times membership, which used a great majority of my savings.

When COVID was declared as an epidemic before the spring break in 2020 and my school shut down, some of my friends and certain social media influencers began treating Asians like an alien with the capacity to kill everyone in a snap. Soon, I found myself distanced from the people I used to count on for confidence and determination and started to fall into the chains of mental distress. I began to develop mood swings, being angry at almost everything, and could barely wait for one or two minutes without growing impatient. Some people around me began to socially harass me and declared that I am wrong or that my opinion doesn’t matter because I am of Chinese descent and, coincidentally, COVID originated from China. It felt as if the world was chewing me up and trying to swallow me. I depended so much on those still with me that when my friend stopped texting me for a day, I had thought they had given up on me like so many other people. I eventually pushed past it and told myself to think about the bright side in life and that I was overreacting. This scenario became almost a weekly occurrence. I was drowning in an ocean of guilt and displeasure with my life chained to an iron ball. I stopped reading COVID news articles because they would make me paranoid to the point of not wanting to do anything except sleep and cry.

I also sympathize with the millions of people suffering or are close to someone suffering from the coronavirus, however, that is not an excuse to slander all Asians.

One day, I decided enough was enough and struck back at the people who had betrayed or ridiculed me. I threw stones of truth and bottle caps of sense until the glass pillar of agony that my enemies had built for me collapsed. The only refutation they could manage to get out of their fingers was, “whatever you say, dirty COVID-Causer” and finally blocked me.

I had never felt so accomplished and happy about someone blocking me on social media.

From that day on, I realized that one does not have to listen to those who want to terrorize you. No one should be inferior just because of their race or ethnicity. One should never be ashamed of their origins. If you find yourself in a situation like mine, just ignore or block them. You must not adhere to the people who lock you up and call you a beast. They will be a burden on your mental health and will chip at you until the stone wall collapses. Leaving foolish people behind is the key step to maturity.

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