Michigan State’s Independent Voice
SOON CHUNG PARK HYUN JUNG GRANT SUNCHA KIM YONG YUE DELAINA ASHLEY YAUN PAUL ANDRE MICHELS XIAOJIE TAN DAOYOU FENG
STOP ASIAN HATE
We stand with Asian American students, faculty, and staff EDITORIAL ON PAGE 2 CAM P US
SP OTLI G HT
O PI N I O N
MSU community reacts to anti-Asian violence
How the community has come together to address homelessness
How I lost my Mexican accent without realizing it
Eight people died in Atlanta — including six Asian women — on March 17. Asian American students share their fears following the tragedy and their hope for change in the future.
Despite COVID-19, local, county and state officials work to combat homelessness in the community.
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Cómo perdí mi acento Mexicano sin darme cuenta PAGES 6-7
OP I N I O N
Editorial: Don’t move on, continue supporting MSU’s AAPI community State News Editorial Board feedback@statenews.com
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rom the Chinese Exclusion Act to “Contagion,” stereotypes about the Asian community have been historically and contemporarily reinforced in American laws, racist attitudes and popular media. Exacerbated by a pandemic some deem the “China virus,” there is a clear line between stereotyping and violence rooted in misogyny and oversexualization of Asian women. It shouldn’t take the deaths of Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng for us to recognize that enough is enough. Often considered the “model minority,” Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders tend to be left out of conversations about racism and social justice. Yet, in the same breath, communities fetishize aspects of Asian culture, including Asian food, culture and holidays. From an intersectional perspec-
tive, Asian American women are also more likely to be oversexualized and misrepresented in the media, only exemplifying the notion that the Asian American community is passive. These issues affect students at MSU. Asian Americans make up 6.8% of the total student population as of Fall 2019. We owe it to these students and the entire Asian American and Pacific Islander community to do better. Hate has no home here, but what do we do when we find it at our doorstep? According to a City Pulse article, in May 2020, MSU alumus Larry Gaynor made several racist remarks about Vietnamese business owners in a since-deleted video, mocking their accent and demanding that they “talk English.” Gaynor and his wife Teresa donated $3 million dollars to MSU in 2017, resulting in the creation of the Larry and Teresa Gaynor Entrepreneurship Lab. The program has not been renamed following Gaynor’s remarks.
It has to stop. In fact, it should have stopped a long time ago. The scale of bigotry and racist violence is both overwhelming and exhausting. White supremacy affects all communities of color, but it affects different communities in different ways. Similar to other people of color, Asian Americans face disparities in many institutions such as health care and mental health. Asian Americans are the least likely of all ethnic groups to report having a personal doctor, according to a Get Healthy, Stay Healthy article. “In fact, 19.4% of Asian American adults report being without a usual source of health care,” the article said. Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s instances of breast cancer rose from 87.0 to 97.8 cases per 100,000 women, the fastest increase of all racial/ ethnic groups, according to the article. According to a report by the Society for Research in Child Development, while over 65% of Chinese American children/
adolescents and over 78% of parents reported being worried that they will suffer because of China being blamed for COVID-19, the AAPI community is less likely to seek mental health resources due to perceived stigma, language barriers and lack of ethnic matches with mental health providers. We need to help break down these stigmas and barriers to better support the communities affected by these issues. We cannot stay silent. We cannot continue to fall into a cycle where we only care about minority communities when tragedy strikes. Asian Americans are not fetishes, exotic, fantasies, viruses or other. They are human. Support Asian American and Pacific Islander communities today, tomorrow and every day after. The State News Editorial Board is composed of Editor-in-Chief Evan Jones, Managing Editor SaMya Overall, Campus Desk Editor Karly Graham, City Desk Editor Sophia Kalakailo, Culture Desk Editor
FOR RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE AAPI COMMUNITY OR TO REPORT AAPI HATE CRIMES: MSU STATEWIDE Counseling and Psychiatric Michigan Department of Civil Services Rights: 800-482-3604 For AAPI events and learning MDCR-INFO@michigan.gov spaces: Asian Pacific AmeriTo report hate crimes in Michican Student Organization gan: hatecrimes@michigan. MSU Asian Pacific Islander Desi gov or call 313-456-0200 American Celebratory Student Organization NATIONWIDE APIDA/Asian Faculty Staff and Asian Mental Health Collective Administrators Leadership Anti-Asian Violence Resources Team Asian American and Pacific Asian Pacific American Studies Islander Women Lead Fund APIDA/A Virtual Listening Space | National Queer Asian Pacific Wednesday March 24 1:00pm Islander Alliance Supportive resources for faculty National Organization of Asians and staff: Employee Assisand Pacific Islanders Ending tance Program Sexual Violence Stop AAPI Hate Hotline CITY OF EAST LANSING Civil rights complaints *These lists of resources are not International resident resources all inclusive. Humans Rights Commision Kaishi Chhabra, Sports Editor Joe Dandron, Copy Chief Mark Ostermeyer, Audience Engagement Editor Julian Stainback, Multimedia Manager Tessa Osborne, Photo Editor Alyte Katilius, Diversity and In-
clusion Coordinator Inna Mirzoyan and Staff Rep. Wendy Guzman. State News staff members Dina Kaur, Ashley Zhou and Daena Faustino also contributed to this editorial.
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Vol. 111 | No. 15
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021
MSU COMMUNITY REACTS TO ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE BY JASMINE HALL jasmine.hall@statenews.com
MSU sophomore Thomas Vue poses for a portrait outside of the MInskoff Pavilion on March 21. Thomas is a first generation Hmong-American. Photo by Alyte Katilius
In light of Robert Aaron Long’s recent murder of eight people including six Asian American women — Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng — Michigan State University students spoke out against racism, violence and hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Earlier this week, Long went on multiple rampage shootings in the Atlanta area and killed eight people. Authorities charged Long on Wednesday, March 17 with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. The Cherokee county sheriff’s office said that Long confessed to the shootings and they were not racially biased, but rather an outlet for his sex addiction. Members of the MSU Asian American and Pacific Islander
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community and many others across the nation disagree. “It’s tragic,” business finance sophomore and member of the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) Thomas Vue said, “It’s taken away eight livelihoods. It’s torn apart eight families.” However, these racist acts are not just limited to the Atlanta area. When addressing racism against Asian-Americans, students at MSU specifically cited racist comments from MSU alum Larry Gaynor. Following a $3 million donation to MSU in 2017, Gaynor is celebrated with an entrepreneurship program, The Larry and Teresa Gaynor Entrepreneurship Lab, in the Eli Broad College of Business. “There’s a few enemies in the business and if you’re in the nail business, the biggest enemy is the Vietnamese salon,” Gaynor said in a video removed from his website. CONTINUE READING ON PAGE 8
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OPINION
Column: How I lost APPLY TO BE THE FUTURE
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By Wendy Guzman wguzman@statenews.com
I’m not really sure if when I talk you can hear anything different about me. That said, every now and then I have a slip-up and you can hear my accent. I was born in Detroit and have lived in Michigan my whole life, so I think I sound like I’m from here. Everyone picks up on how other people talk, so you develop their dialects or start
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using their slang. That’s how all accents are developed and carried on. The difference with me is the fact that I picked up my accents and my words from people that weren’t my parents. My parents both speak Spanish, so I grew up bilingual, with only Spanish being spoken at home, and everywhere else feeling like a different world. It was my first language, and I learned English in preschool. Since I’ve been a chatterbox my whole life, it didn’t take me very long to pick up English. I was probably frustrated that I couldn’t talk to the other kids in my class and figured out English within a month or two so I could give my two cents. In grade school, I had a Mexican-Spanish accent, which is almost unnoticeable if you talk to me now. For my whole life I remember wanting to consume the culture that I was around. I would think, “I’m a kid and I live in America. So, I’m going
For my whole life I remember wanting to consume the culture I was around. I would think, “I’m a kid and I live in America. So I’m going to do that.” to do that.” I don’t really want to repress where I’m from, but I think it’s our natural instinct as people to want to fit in. I was an only child for almost seven years and spent most of my time growing up with my Spanish-speaking mother. I had time to get pret-
Columna: Cómo perdí By Wendy Guzman wguzman@statenews.com
No sé si cuando hablo Inglés me escucho diferente a los demás. Pero de vez en cuando me falla y se nota mi acento. Nací en Detroit y crecí en Michigan, así que me escucho como los que son de aquí. Todos hablamos como los que están alrededor de nosotros. Usamos las mismas palabras y frases. Así es como el lenguaje se mantiene y cambia durante el tiempo. La diferencia es que los acentos y frases mías no vienen de mis padres. Crecí bilingüe porque mis padres hablan español. El español siempre se hablaba en la casa, y afuera de la casa era como otro mundo donde todos hablan inglés. Aprendí inglés en la escuela preescolar. Siempre he sido habladora y no tenía paciencia sin poder hablar con mis compañeros, así que creo que aprendí inglés para poder hablar con ellos. 6
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En la primaria se notaba mi acento Mexicano cuando hablaba inglés, pero ya casi ni se nota. Toda mi vida me acuerdo querer consumir la cultura alrededor de mi. Pensaba porque era una niña en America, deberia comportar me así. No quiero reprimir de donde vengo pero creo que es nuestro instinto natural querer acomodarnos a los que están alrededor. Mi hermana tiene trece años y su español está bien, pero no perfecto. Mi hermano tiene diez años y tiene el español roto. El prefiere el inglés. Dado que ser bilingüe es definitivamente lo mejor de mí, ¿por qué querría reprimirlo? Crecer con el inglés como segundo idioma (ISI) significa que me sacaban de mi clase una o dos veces por semana para tomar clases especiales de lenguaje, que yo, como un estudiante destacado en mi clase, realmente no necesitaba, y en cambio me hizo sentir excluido. Tomé estas clases hasta mi primer año de secundaria. Haber crecido ISI significa tener que tragarme mi ansiedad social y tener que pedir ayuda en la tienda cada vez que mi madre no podía encontrar lo que estaba buscando. Haber crecido ISI significa que mi madre me ha llama-
Toda mi vida me acuerdo querer consumir la cultura alrededor de mi. Pensaba porque era una niña en America, deberia comportar me así. do mientras yo estaba en la universidad para poder pedir una pizza porque mi hermana era demasiado tímida y mi hermano muy chiquito. Haber crecido ISI significa que tenía que completar todos los documentos oficiales que llegaban por correo desde que tenía 10 años porque mi padre tenía miedo de arruinarlos. Me transferí a un distrito escolar predominantemente blanco para la escuela secundaria y, en ese momento, creo que también transferí
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my Mexican accent without realizing it ty good at my language, and over my years in my church choir, my reading and writing got pretty good as well. I have a 13-year-old sister, and her Spanish is OK, without much of a sense of grammar. I also have a 10-year-old brother, whose Spanish is very broken and mostly talks in English. Given that being bilingual is definitely the coolest thing about me, why would I ever want to repress it? Growing up with English as a second language (ESL) meant I was taken out of my class once or twice a week for special speech and language classes, that I, as a top student in my class, didn’t really need, and instead it made me feel excluded. I took these classes until my freshman year of high school. Growing up ESL meant having to swallow my social anxiety for years and ask for help at the store every time my mom couldn’t find what she was looking for. Growing up ESL meant my mom calling me while I was
away at college so I could order her a pizza because my little sister was too shy and my brother was too little. Growing up ESL meant I had to fill out every single official government documentation that came in the mail starting at the age of 10 because my dad was scared to mess them up. I transferred to a predominantly white school district for high school and by that point, I think I also devolved interests of my own. I identified a lot with pop culture in America and Britain. I was so obsessed with it because it was what I didn’t know. I picked up things here and there growing up, and I only recently realized I subconsciously faked a different accent for the entirety of my teens. I sound like this because I made myself sound like this. But I didn’t do it to part with my culture and the people I grew up with. I’m called whitewashed and unproud by my own people while I was just trying to find myself in a
country my family knew close to nothing about. A friend of mine once told me I sound like a regular Midwestern girl, but I just happen to also speak Spanish. It’s my own fault people don’t know more about this part of me. I don’t talk about my other world, but I want people to know that I’m not proud of omitting that part of my identity. I didn’t realize that while I was trying to fit in somewhere I physically was, I was losing a part of me that was
I sound like this because I made myself sound like this.
emotionally somewhere else. When you’re not accepted from one side of your life you seek to be accepted by the other. Maybe faking my accent didn’t work. I ended up tugging on both sides instead. There are some kids whose parents, for almost the same reason that I started to repress my other language and accent, know Spanish but didn’t teach it to their kids to help them fit in and make life “simple” growing up in America. To those people, I understand your frustrations, and I’m so sorry you feel robbed of the opportunity to fully feel a part of your culture. My roommate told me that it makes her sad knowing she can’t have a conversation with my mom. I don’t think there’s anybody that has ever told me that before. I don’t even know why the thought failed to cross my mind. My mom is funny, expressive and blunt. I get some of my best traits from her, and some of my closest friends are never going to be able to
actually witness it. It’s really sad to think about, but I also have to be thankful that I am able to communicate with her. I have the opportunity to be able to communicate with two different worlds without having to think twice. The switch in my brain flips on its own and a million windows open up. Sometimes I forget how to say a word in Spanish or I don’t know what an English word my friend uses means because I never heard it before. Sometimes I even have to look up phrases on Urban Dictionary before saying them so I don’t sound like an idiot during conversations. I label myself as a bilingual journalist on my resume. I think it’s funny because my friends told me that it would make me more appealing to employers — which is true — but it’s an awesome skill to have, and I have it almost completely out of luck. But it really is something we need to talk about more. Language is one of the most
important and interesting things about humans, and I only know two. Being bilingual made me feel so much like an outsider that I didn’t realize I was forcing myself to fit in. I’m learning to love and embrace it.
To everyone else that is multilingual, I think it’s OK to come to terms with the fact that it’s not always easy, but it’s also a great privilege to have that will always put us a step ahead and that’s what we have to remember.
mi acento Mexicano sin darme cuenta mis propios intereses. Me identifiqué mucho con la cultura pop de los Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña. Estaba tan obsesionado con eso porque era nuevo e interesante para mi y no los conocía. Era sólo recientemente que me di cuenta de que inconscientemente fingí un acento diferente durante toda mi adolescencia. Sueno como sueno porque yo misma lo hice. Pero no lo hice adrede. No quería romper con mi cultura y con los que crecieron junto a mi. Mi propia gente me llama blanqueada y poca orgullosa mientras intentaba encontrarme en un país del que mi familia no sabía casi nada. Un amigo me dijo que sueno como una muchacha normal del Medio Oeste, pero casualmente también hablo español. Es mi culpa que la gente no sepa de esta parte de mí. No hablo de mi otro mundo, pero quiero que la gente sepa que no estoy orgulloso de omitir esa parte de mi identidad. No me di cuenta de que mientras intentaba encajar en algún lugar donde estaba físicamente, estaba perdiendo la parte de mí que estaba en otro lugar emocionalmente. Cuando no eres aceptado por un lado de tu vida, buscas ser aceptado por el otro. Quizás fingir mi acento no
funcionó. Terminé tirando de ambos lados. Hay algunos niños cuyos padres, casi por la misma razón por la que comencé a reprimir mi otro idioma y acento, saben español pero no se lo enseñaron a sus hijos para ayudarlos a encajar y hacer la vida más fácil para crecer en Estados Unidos. A esas personas, comprendo sus frustraciones y lamento mucho que se sientan que les robaron la oportunidad de sentirse completamente parte de su cultura. Mi compañera de la escuela me dijo que la entristece saber que no puede tener una conversación con mi mamá. Nadie me había dicho eso antes. Ni siquiera sé por qué el pensamiento no había pasado por mi mente. Mi mamá es divertida, expresiva y franca. De ella obtuve algunos de mis mejores
Sueno como sueno porque yo misma lo hice.
rasgos, y algunos de mis amigos más cercanos nunca podrán comunicarse con ella para poder saberlo. Me pone triste pensar en eso , pero también tengo que estar agradecido de poder comunicarme con ella. Puedo comunicarme con dos mundos diferentes sin tener que pensarlo dos veces. Mi cerebro se activa por sí solo y se abren un millón de ventanas. A veces se me olvida cómo decir una palabra en español o no sé qué significa una palabra que usa mi amigo en inglés porque nunca la escuché antes. A veces incluso tengo que buscar frases en ingles en Urban Dictionary antes de decirlas para no parecer un idiota durante las conversaciones. Me etiqueto como periodista bilingüe. Creo que es gracioso porque mis amigos me dijeron que me haría más atractivo cuando busco un trabajo, lo cual es cierto, pero es una habilidad increíble que tengo por suerte. Pero realmente es algo de lo que necesitamos hablar más. El lenguaje es una de las cosas más importantes e interesantes de los seres humanos, y yo solo se dos. Ser bilingüe me hizo sentir separada y no me di cuenta de que me estaba forzando a encajar con los que me rodeaban. Estoy aprendiendo a amarlo y abrazarlo.
Para todos los que son multilingües, creo que está bien aceptar el hecho de que no siempre es fácil, pero hablar más de un lenguaje es un gran privilegio tener que siempre nos pondrá un paso adelante y eso es lo que debemos recordar.
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MSU COMMUNITY REACTS TO ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 He then went on to disparage their sanitation, pricing and “the way they talk” — citing English as the language to speak in America. Gaynor has since apologized for his comments. However, Asian-American members of the MSU community urged for name change, but MSU has yet to budge. Social relations and policy junior and Vice President of Asian Pacific American Student Organization (APASO) Jonathan Suan said that rhetoric like this contributes to racist culture and encourages violence. Since the pandemic began, Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition addressing anti-Asian hate throughout the pandemic, reported nearly 3,800 hate incidents against members of the Asian American community. In just 2021 alone, there have been 503 incidents reported. These incidents involve verbal harassment, shunning (deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans), physical assault, civil rights violations and online harassment. These are only a fraction of
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the true number of incidents occurring in the United States but give representation to the kind of racism Asians have been experiencing throughout the pandemic and historically. After the events in Atlanta, many students said they were scared for their safety. “I was very fearful,” international relations junior David Tran said, his voice wavering. “I will be honest with you. I went back to Detroit and from all the news about coronavirus and how it got exponentially worse throughout the summer, I saw a very increased hatred for the Asian American community.” Tran, who is a member of the VSA and APASO, said he has been experiencing racism since the pandemic began, but has felt the historic pressures of antiAsian sentiments his entire life. From hateful comments on the street like “it’s [the pandemic] because of your people” or microaggressions about his true “home,” it has been a daily presence and struggle. Tran believes that these kinds of actions are deemed acceptable because Asian American hate crimes have
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been normalized in society. In his eyes, historically there hasn’t been any real action and it has always been dismissed. There also isn’t a way to get help because of Asian Americans status as the “model minority.” “We are tired of it,” Tran said. “And we are tired of seeing our fellow community members dying. We are tired of seeing mothers being lost and sons literally struggling because they no longer have their parents.” Comparative cultures and politics sophomore and member of APASO Annie Hamaty said she broke down Friday after holding it in all week. “I wish that they would label it as a hate crime,” she said. “Because it most definitely is.” She said that it gives more power to the situation if it is labeled as a hate crime and that there is transparency. This isn’t a singular, disconnected event — it is a culmination of racism and anti-Asian rhetoric over the past century. Hamaty also said that the loss of these women is especially poignant to her. As an Asian American woman, it brings up the discussion of both the fetishization and discrimination
TU ESDAY, MARCH 23, 202 1
specifically against women in her community. “Being in the body of a woman, you don’t feel safe,” she said. And by being a woman and Vietnamese, she said she feels the weight of both. Suan said this kind of antiAsian rhetoric has been ingrained in American history and the last presidential administration continued the trend. Former President Donald Trump coined the term “China virus” and racialized language moving forward in the pandemic. “We don’t know if these people in power are against us or for us,” Vue said. Student organizations such as VSA and APASO bring comfort and support after tragedy, but also are a resource for other students on campus to learn about different communities. However, moving forward, all four students believe that reaching out, learning and understanding historical context are factors in breaking down racial discrimination and barriers. This is not something they can do by themselves though.
MSU sophomore Annie Hamaty poses for a portrait near Beaumont Tower on March 20. Hamaty was adopted at a young age from Vietnam and was enrolled in various camps/programs with her parents throughout her life to learn about her culture. She is currently a member of the Asian Pacific American Student Organization (APASO). Photo by Alyte Katilius
-“Not everyone likes the color of your pigment on your skin,” Vue said. “Not everyone likes the shape of your eyes. Not
everyone likes the way that you talk or the color of your hair. And because of that, it’s kind of unsetting to say the least.”