Roundtables (April 2020): How A Pandemic & Xenophobia is Affecting You

Attendance

This roundtable discussion was incorporated to MAFA's Sampaguita: online MFAS week. We had the pleasure of Zoom to invite more of the community to talk about their knowledge, feelings, resentments, acts of solidarity around COVID-19. MFAS Committee members: Mat Rodriguez (UW-Madison's FASO) & Millicent Reyes (UW-Milwaukee's FSU) facilitated the conversation between various schools. It was wonderful having so many perspectives talk about this issue affecting the Asian American community and the global after-effects.

Round Table Layout: Click Here

Livestream: Click Here

Notes Section

Current COVID-19 Information

Origin:

• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans” (WHO, 2020).

• Conspiracy Wars - Mass Hysteria spreads faster than the virus

  • China created in a lab

  • Bat Soup - judgment on what cultures eat

  • 5G

Virus Now:

• All states have cases, not all states are on stay at home orders

• Curve is variable

  • 2nd wave

• Universities are looking into online schools until fall

  • https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/harvard-study-some-social-distancing-required-into-2022.html

  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2020/04/13/boston-university-is-first-to-announce-it-may-postpone-its-fall-term-until-january-2021/#b451abe4bd55

• Intermittent Lockdowns

  • EX: China lifted the lockdown but seeing the spike again

• Collectivist vs Individualist mindset

  • Taking precautions for the community vs

Issues with COVID-19

Discrimination:

• against disabled people in Washington and Alabama state

• UW Madison incident/hate crime

  • Purposeful Locations near Madison’s campus

  • Downfalls of Individualist culture

• Experiences of racism

• Microaggressions

Front-Line Workers

• Cultural Differences

  • Selfish mindset toward healthcare workers & not staying home

• Background on Fil-Am nurses: HIV/AIDS epidemic brought in more nurses to help with pandemics

• How to support Family/Friends?

  • Offering words of support

  • Doing chores around the house to help out your family

Rifts in the minority community

• Anti-blackness

• Model Minority effects today

• Eating Dog = Eating Bat parallel

  • Dehumanizing / Yellow Perrill

• Who is worthy of attention/adoption

  • Colonialism - taking without knowledge

Closing: How to stay strong

• Struggle with how to handle a situation appropriately

• solidarity amongst minority communities