"An unsaid truth": Why some Asian families are hesitant to discuss racism
CBSN
When she was growing up, Annie Tan only heard her cousin Vincent Chin's name twice. The first was when her brother, who was 22, wanted to go out to a bar with some friends one night. "My mom said, 'Don't go out so late and (get) killed like your cousin,'" said Tan, 31, who is now a special education teacher in New York City. The second time came while watching a documentary that featured Chin, who was killed by two White men in 1982. Tan's mother acknowledged that Chin was indeed her cousin and that his mother and her great aunt, Lily Chin, helped grow Asian American activism in the wake of her son's death. Tan was shocked but unsurprised that her parents kept this from her. "To my parents, it's more of an unsaid truth that this is a dangerous world," Tan said. Tan's story is a painful reminder that anti-Asian violence in America isn't new. While some parents have taken this moment to discuss racism with their children, experts believe many Asian immigrants may be hesitant to have those conversations because it betrays the model minority myth — the perception that Asian Americans have been able to overcome past discrimination and achieve high levels of success.
"The model minority myth is saying that society is looking at you positively, even though you experienced this," said Min Zhou, a professor of sociology and Asian American Studies at UCLA. "So it must be on the individual level, it can't be society's fault, so you just have to tough it out." Tan and her family have always been careful about venturing out of Chinatown but became even more so during the pandemic. Her parents don't speak a lot of English, and they've developed a close-knit community in their neighborhood. Tan said explicit conversations about race are still rare. But they use messaging platforms like WeChat to keep up to date about attacks and rarely go out alone or at night. She said her parents are even more cautious because they know older Asians are being physically assaulted at much higher rates. "I'll get verbal assaults but they're the ones being attacked," Tan said. "I think they knew that very early on, so they only go out during the day." Jessica Owyoung, 37, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, recalls hearing stories of her father being harassed but never reporting the incidents. Owyoung, a college counselor, said her family felt strongly that reporting the crimes wouldn't lead to justice. Owyoung said her great-grandfather was shot and killed in the 1930s when he lived in the Bay Area. No one was ever prosecuted, which made it harder to believe less violent incidents of racism would be taken seriously by law enforcement.There's no making up for what Olympic hurdler Lashinda Demus lost on the day she finished .07 seconds behind a Russian opponent who, everyone later learned, was doping. What the American 400-meter hurdles champion will finally receive is a great day under the Eiffel Tower where she'll be presented with the gold medal she was denied 12 years ago at the London Olympics.