It has been a week in which the Asian American community has been in the news for reasons both triumphant and sorrowful. Sunisa Lee, the 18 year old Hmong-American gymnast, won an Olympic gold medal yesterday in Tokyo. On Tuesday, the man who murdered eight people in metro-Atlanta spas was sentenced to four life terms in prison in four of those murders. Seven of his victims were women of Asian descent.
Today on Midday, conversations about the continuing problem of anti-Asian racism. As of May, the group Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate had reported 6,600 incidents of anti-Asian racist acts in the last year, several of which have been captured on horrifying videos.
Anti-Asian incidents have spiked during the pandemic, with prominent political leaders and media personalities disparaging China in particular as a malicious actor in the pandemic.
According to a Gallup Poll released yesterday, just 46% of Americans are satisfied with the way Asian people are treated, a 14% drop from last year. Before 2016, Gallup found more than seven in 10 Americans were satisfied with the way society treated Asian people.
Tom's first guests today are two artists who are co-founders and co-executive directors of the Baltimore Asian Pasifika Arts Collective (APAC), a nonprofit organization that uses art to advocate for representation of Asian Americans and Pacific Indigenous Americans and to build cross-community relationships.
Catrece Ann Tipon is a photographer and choreographer who is also a nurse.
Cori Dioquino is an actress and producer, the owner of the Dioquino Acting Studio here in Baltimore, and a force behind the brand campaign, Unapologetically Asian.
Then, Tom speaks with Dr. Charissa Cheah. She’s a developmental psychologist who studies immigrant families and their experience of discrimination and identity. Dr. Cheah is a professor of Psychology and an affiliate faculty member in the Asian Studies Department at the University of MD Baltimore County. She’s also the Director of the Culture, Child and Adolescent Development Lab at UMBC.
In November of last year, Dr. Cheah and several colleagues published an article in the Journal of Pediatrics about anti-Chinese racism experienced by Chinese American families since the advent of the Coronavirus. That research continues.
Dr. Charissa Cheah joins us on Zoom from her home in Ellicott City.
Audio will be posted here by 2:30pm.
