‘Love your neighbor.’ Asian Americans in Centre County speak out during AAPI Heritage Month
Shih-In Ma, a third-generation Chinese American who was raised in State College, has had nearly every anti-Asian slur directed at her.
She rattled off a handful of anti-Asian comments hurled her way and acknowledged there were plenty more along the way. They’re something she carries with her years later.
“If I pass by a house that had a Confederate flag, ... I’d be like, ‘Dear God, please don’t let me break down in front of this house.’ “ she said. “This is not a reaction that your average white person would have.”
The first slur came when she and her brother were walking to Corl Street Elementary in the 1960s and a group threw snowballs at them while using racial epithets.
During a virtual event Monday, Ma will moderate a panel discussion and share her experiences and perspectives during an event hosted by the Community Diversity Group, “Powerful Voices: Asian Americans in Centre County Speak Out.” Other panelists include Centre County District Judge Don Hahn, who was State College’s first Asian American mayor, Nalini Krishnankutty, an engineer turned writer, educator and speaker and active community volunteer Hyeseon Kim.
For Ma, her experiences also include sitting next to a former high school classmate during a concert at The State Theatre; a classmate who harassed her “all the way through school” because of her race.
“Even though I was well-known, well-respected and really active in all kinds of things, I was still vulnerable to this kind of tormenting,” she said. “I didn’t tell people what was going on because I was too ashamed. It’s like there was something wrong.”
The coronavirus pandemic stoked long-standing anti-Asian bias, she said. A white woman walking in Sam’s Club looked at her and promptly said “We’re not going down this aisle” before turning around at the beginning of the pandemic.
People have used Google to search “Chinese virus” more often than “Where did COVID-19 come from” since March 2020. Searches for the former peaked shortly after former President Donald Trump used inflammatory rhetoric in a tweet.
Stop AAPI Hate — a movement launched in March 2020 in response to a rise in anti-Asian bias and racism stemming from the pandemic — reported more than 6,600 anti-Asian incidents occurred nationally since the start of the pandemic.
Verbal harassment and the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the most commonly reported incidents.
That’s part of the reason the Community Diversity Group and State College Community Engagement Office plan to use Monday as a time to come together during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
“Powerful Voices: Asian Americans in Centre County Speak Out” is scheduled to begin about 7 p.m. Registration for the online event is required.
“My hope — in the long-run — is we can come to embrace, support and be kind to everyone. Love your neighbor, no exceptions,” she said. “In addition to policies and laws, we need to do the hard work in ourselves to make this happen.”
For more information on Monday’s event, visit www.communitydiversitygroup.org/events.
This story was originally published May 16, 2021 at 7:00 AM.