“I have pepper spray and I hold it every time I’m alone right now in case I see someone that is really frightening,” said New York City teacher Annie Tan, who is Chinese American. By February 2020, friends of hers had already been verbally harassed on the subway. One had been deliberately coughed on. Another was too scared to take the train anymore. Many Asian Americans and
Last week, San Diego airport bartender Anita Burbage got the call she’d been waiting months to hear – that it was time to go back to work.
Burbage, 56, who came to the United States in 1991 from her native Philippines, didn’t mind that she’d be instead working as a server, and for just two days a week. After spending most of the past year unemployed, the Chula Vista, California, resident was grateful to be working again.
She and her hospitality worker colleagues have survived the year in part because of regular Zoom chats organized by their union in which they share their fears: That they won’t be able to make rent. That they’ll get COVID. Or for her fellow Filipino colleagues, that they’ll be assaulted – simply because they’re Asian.