Chinese people are discriminated against amid pneumonia epidemic

Frank Ye, now a master's student at the University of Toronto, Canada, was just eight years old when the SARS epidemic broke out in 2003.

“I still remember other kids on the school playground telling me to go away because ‘all Chinese have SARS,’” Ye wrote on Twitter on January 26. “My heart aches for the Chinese kids who face racism because of this.”

As news of the novel coronavirus outbreak began to spread, Chinese Canadians like Ye were not only concerned about the spread of the new coronavirus, but also about the wave of racism against them.

Terri Chu, a Toronto native of Chinese descent, has received a lot of criticism for expressing concerns on Twitter about racism accompanying the spread of the coronavirus worldwide.

“My Twitter was flooded with vitriol from that morning,” Chu said on January 28. “But that’s just a normal thing to do when you’re in a minority, not in the majority.”

Canada has so far recorded three cases of the virus, which originated in Wuhan, China. Despite living on the other side of the world, the Chinese community has been the target of racist attacks. Canada saw a similar wave of xenophobia during the SARS epidemic, which also originated in China, 17 years ago.

In the panic at that time, many Chinese businesses in Canada suffered heavy losses due to fear of the epidemic. Toronto lost about 1 billion CND as residents and tourists avoided the city, especially areas with a high concentration of Chinese businesses and restaurants.

Many Chinese workers were laid off, Chinese people were thrown out of their jobs by landlords, and even funeral homes refused to accept the dead from a hospital treating SARS.

The panic that once paralyzed much of Toronto appears to be returning, said Amy Go, interim president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be like 2003, but it’s happening and it’s being magnified by social media,” Go said.

When a popular Toronto blog introduced a new Chinese restaurant on Instagram on January 27, the post quickly received a barrage of racist comments. Nearly 9,000 parents in the York School District, north of Toronto, also signed a petition asking students who had been to China in the past 17 days to stay home.

"This has to stop. Stop eating wild animals and then infecting everyone around you," one petitioner wrote. "Stop the spread and quarantine yourselves or go back to China."

York District School Board, which represents 208 schools, has condemned the petition amid concerns that students will be targeted because of their race.

“We understand the growing anxiety among families of Chinese descent,” said Juanita Nathan, the council’s president. “Individuals who make even well-intentioned assumptions about safety, risk to others, or request or suggest quarantine can be seen as demonstrating bias and racism.”

Terri Chu believes fears about the coronavirus are overblown.

“Air pollution and the proliferation of SUVs is a much bigger public health risk to my children right now than the coronavirus. It’s overwhelming in scale,” she said. “The SARS death toll in Canada was 44. Last year in Toronto, 41 people were hit by cars.”

The racist attitudes have also been seen in other countries with large Chinese communities. In Australia, Queensland state leader Duncan Pegg has warned people about fake news circulating online that is causing panic in communities with high proportions of Asians.

But Go said the reaction in Canada, home to some of the world's most ethnically diverse cities, has exposed the racism that still exists every day.

"In two or three months, the coronavirus will probably be gone. But this is not just a public health issue. This is a racism issue in Canada," he said. "The most positive impact of this is that people understand that we can do better."