Between Heritage and HatePosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Latino Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2021-08-31 03:03Z by Steven |
palabra
2021-05-25
 Photo from the archive of Fabiana Chiu-Rinaldi. |
For Latino Asians, waves of Coronavirus-fueled hate and violence present a seemingly unending threat. They’re also reminders of a strong, but complicated heritage
Ahki Hasegawa is glad the COVID-19 pandemic has everyone wearing masks, and not just to protect against the virus.
“The only Asian part about me is my face,” the 34-year-old nurse told palabra. “So if I were to just slap on some sunglasses, and then wear my mask, there’s no way anybody would assume that I’m Asian at all.”
As an American citizen of Mexican and Japanese descent, Hasegawa said she trembled when she ran into a recent “White Lives Matter” rally in Huntington Beach, California, while walking her dog. “I’m glad I have a dog. And I haven’t been going out unless I’m with the dog. I don’t own a gun, but I definitely thought about it for self defense.”
Hasegawa is part of an often-overlooked community of Latinos of Asian heritage who have endured the waves of anti-Asian hate spreading across the United States.
Believing the Latino community to be a homogenous group is an almost routine mistake in American society. The image of a light-skinned mestizo floods the media as the only face of Latinidad. But it bears repeating: Latino is an ethnicity that stems from many combinations of races…
Read the entire article here.