Some Good Ol' Fashioned Racism in The Home Depot Parking Lot

And Other Things to Know From Angry Asian America.



Man says officer shrugged off racist incident at Home Depot
In Seattle, an Asian man says he was the target of racist remarks at a Home Depot store, but when he reported the incident to store management and police, nobody acted like they gave a shit. Kert Lin said he was on his way into the store when another driver cut him off. When the two arrived in the parking lot, the other driver called Lin and racial slur and told him "Open your eyes, go back to China." Lin informed store security, who did nothing. Lin told a police officer who arrived at scene, who did nothing. At the very least, the officer should have filed an incident report. Lin has since received an apology from the police chief, after sharing about the incident on social media. Whatever you do, don't let this shit slide, folks.

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This is my daughter Dakota. We are Indigenous. She was walking her dog last night in #Vancouver when a #racist guy heard her sneezing. He yelled at her, punched her and walked away. He thought she was Asian and her sneezing was #COVID19. @VPD attended. #racism #RacismIsAVirus pic.twitter.com/mBhVgdFaBk

— Don Bain (@lheidli1) May 17, 2020

Indigenous woman says she was punched, told to 'go back to Asia'
So this is an anti-Asian hate crime in which the victim wasn't actually Asian. Last week, a 27-year-old Indigenous woman says she was repeatedly punched in the face, knocked down and told to "go back to Asia" while walking her dog in East Vancouver. She says she was walking through a park on Friday night when she sneezed. A man then walked up to her, began yelling racist Asian slurs, pushed her to the ground, then punched in her in the jaw and temple before walking away. The assailant is described as a white man in his mid-30s, heavyset, 5 foot 11, and wearing a hat and a navy blue or black sweater. So... yeah. Be on the lookout for that guy. Fuck racists.

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I lost both my parents in the COVID-19 era. How do I reopen my own life?
"I don’t know what’s going to happen next. No one does. We make our choices and we live with them. I do know that I can’t imagine not having made the trip to see my siblings, bury our father, and grieve together. Whatever happens with the pandemic, we all need each other; we need to work hard and ask the right questions; we need to be honest and not afraid."

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Filipino nurses battled discrimination to work in the U.S. Now they fight for PPE.
Maybe you've noticed: there are a lot of Filipino nurses working in our hospitals. The story of why Filipino nurses came to this country is the legacy of a very long colonial history between the U.S. and the Philippines.

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Research Survey: Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health for Asian/Asian Americans
Lydia Ahn and Mira An, researchers at University of Maryland, College Park, are conducting a study on the impact of COVID-19 and racism on mental health for East Asian/Asian Americans, and are looking for folks to take part. Participation will require completing a confidential online self-report survey (approximately 20 minutes) at your convenience. If you are East Asian/Asian American, age 18 and older, and would like to help out with this research, complete the survey here.

"Go to China if you want communism. Go to China."

And Other Things to Know From Angry Asian America.



Anti-quarantine Protester Clashes with People in Scrubs
Over the weekend in Denver, health care workers clashed with anti-lockdown protesters, defiantly standing in front of the cars of demonstrators who flocked to protest against the state's stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19. Yeah, I'm going to be siding with the health care workers on this one -- not the white lady hanging out the passenger side window screaming "Go to China!"

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"Coronavirus reveals the chinks of our health care armor"
Actual headline from the Marin Independent Journal. (It has since been changed.)

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"Unprepared"
In the wake of Donald Trump's campaign attack ad accusing Joe Biden of being "soft of China," the Biden campaign has taken a similar page out of the anti-Chinese propaganda playbook. The presumptive Democratic nominee unveiled a campaign ad -- filled with menacing images of Chinese soldiers -- claiming that "Trump rolled over for the Chinese." The path to November has been laid.

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Stage 13 Studio Creates Campaign To Support Asian Restaurants
Stage 13 content studio has launched #stage13supports, a campaign to highlight the Asian restaurants and small businesses featured in season 1 of its original unscripted Asian cuisine and travel series Family Style (I was a guest on Episode 8), and recommend ways people can order takeout or delivery. Join the Facebook group here.

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Dumbfoundead & Satica - "Inside/Outside"
Los Angeles rapper Dumbfoundead has released a two-song collaborative quarantine project titled Inside/Outside with singer Satica. The two tracks, produced by Big Banana, explore the themes of being locked "Inside" during this unique quarantine era, and the excitement of finally getting through it in "Outside." Check out the trippy visualizer for "Outside."

This NICU nurse cared for him as a preemie. Now he's a doctor.

28 years later, they're working at the same hospital.



As the kid of a retired nurse, this story warms my heart. A nurse in California was surprised to find herself reunited with a former patient -- then, just 29 weeks old -- now, a pediatric resident at the same hospital.

Nurse Vilma Wong has worked in the NICU at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford for 32 years. She had been caring for patients alongside Brandon Seminatore, a second-year pediatric resident, when she remembered once being the primary nurse to premature baby with the same last name.

They both quickly deduced that Brandon was, indeed, Vilma's patient almost three decades ago.

It turns out that Seminatore's mother, remembering Wong's care, had told him to look for a "Vilma" in the NICU. But he thought it was pretty unlikely that he'd find her, assuming she'd already retired. Apparently not.

"I was in shock initially but overjoyed to know that I took care of him almost 30 years ago and now he's as a pediatric resident to the same population he was part of when he was born," Wong tells Babble.

The hospital's Facebook page posted a photo of Vilma and baby Brandon, circa 1990, alongside a photo of their reunion last month. The post, of course, has since gone viral.

The Nurse Who Beat Ebola

Nina Pham officially declared virus-free, gets a hug from President Obama



Nina Pham is going to be okay. Two weeks after she tested positive for Ebola, the Dallas nurse was declared virus-free and discharged from the Maryland hospital were she had been receiving care for the past week.

Nina Pham, Nurse Infected With Ebola, Is Now Virus-Free

26-year-old Pham, the first person known to contract Ebola within the United States, was infected while caring for patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who later died of the virus at Pham's hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, where Pham was placed in a special isolation care ward for infectious disease cases, announced Friday that she no longer tested positive for Ebola and was being discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health.

First known U.S. Ebola patient identified as Dallas nurse

26-year-old Nina Pham contracted the virus while treating 'patient zero.'



The first person known to contract Ebola within the United States has been identified as Nina Pham, a 26-year-old Texas nurse who was infected while caring for the first person to die of the virus.

Dallas Nurse With Ebola Identified

Pham, a critical care nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, is one of at least fifty people who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted the disease in Liberia and then traveled to the U.S., where he first started showing symptoms. He died last Wednesday.

Pham is reportedly in stable condition. It's possible that there may be additional cases among the health care workers who treated Duncan.