The America they fantasized about, the one they saw in Hollywood movies, doesn’t exist.
Felicity Tao received more media requests in the last few days than she has in the last year. The requests all looked the same, and they would be familiar to any minority community dealing with tragedy. The reporters she talked to almost seemed to follow a script – a script in search of pain. And when they couldn’t find that, or her pain wasn’t painful enough, they moved on. Tao was being asked these questions because eight people had been killed in a series of shootings in and around Atlanta on Tuesday night. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent. It was the kind of shocking violence that grabbed the nation’s attention. Finally, America could see the kind of Asian racism that is often hidden away or underreported, even as former President Donald Trump seemed to revel in calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.” But even with eight people dead, there was debate about whether the attack was a hate crime. About whether racism was the primary motive. About whether America was finally ready to stop Asian hate. Tao was a journalist before immigrating to America, and she knows the truth is more complex than that. The truth is Tao was in San Francisco for her 20th wedding anniversary a few years ago when a woman kicked her luggage and told her to go back to her country. She hasn’t experienced overt racism like that in Cincinnati. But the truth is she often feels invisible here, which takes its own heavy toll. Because there is no Chinatown here, and stories of prejudice against Asian people often go untold. Tao is a communications director for the Greater Cincinnati Chinese School in Butler County, and she founded the Greater Cincinnati Chinese Cultural Exchange Association. She is an advocate who knows Asian people are underrepresented in Cincinnati media, including The Enquirer. She knows this because she is the one sending press releases that often go unanswered. And after the devastating attacks in Atlanta, the intense spotlight on Asian Americans only reinforces the lack of attention they are normally paid. “We don’t exist,” Tao said. Across the street from a sports bar in Silverton, the sign hangs in all capital letters: WANGLAW. In the window below, there is a poster: “English is spoken here.” Standing in the lobby looking out at the window, Charleston Wang says the poster helps keep white nationalists away. He laughs, but it’s hard to tell if he’s joking. After watching the news conferences about what happened on Tuesday, Wang looked up the definition of sex addiction. He did this because he felt confused and offended and sad as he watched a sheriff’s spokesperson in Georgia answer questions about a possible motive for the attacks. The suspect had denied any racial motivation, police said, and blamed the violence on his sexual addiction.
